Asif Akbar’s Boneyard represents everything wrong with modern low-budget filmmaking… a serial killer thriller so amateurishly executed it makes daytime soap operas look sophisticated.
Based on the West Mesa murders, this could have been compelling material, but instead delivers 90 minutes of absolute tedium.
The acting is uniformly poor, with even Gibson unable to elevate the dreadful script and inept direction. What’s most frustrating is how Mel Gibson and 50 Cent are essentially reduced to glorified cameos, barely present long enough to justify their billing. Gibson looks genuinely embarrassed throughout, whilst 50 Cent appears to have wandered in from another, better production.
The film lacks momentum, tension and atmosphere, with the approximate texture of a TV procedural episode. Akbar’s direction is laughably incompetent, featuring shaky camera work that screams “amateur hour” and dialogue so wooden it could supply a lumber yard.
Despite its chilling premise, the film suffers from a flat tone with no atmosphere or suspense and a formulaic script. The supporting cast delivers performances that wouldn’t pass muster in community theatre, making this Prime Video offering feel like a complete waste of bandwidth.
Rating: 3/10 (A crushing disappointment that squanders its true-crime premise and wastes its marquee names)
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