Tired of waiting for the next Taken movie by tiding yourself over with the mostly uninspired A Walk Among the Tombstones? Good news. This movie is taking a page right out of the same book as that one. It stars Liam Neeson as a guy past his prime gets pushed into a situation where he has to use all of his pent-up skills to protect those he loves and punish the wicked.
He starts off as a laughing stock. All of the relatively useless people in the bar where he sleeps off and then regains his stupor laugh at him unabashedly. Liam himself shows little spark of life and instead lives off of handouts and the kindness of those around him. Specifically, he lives off of Ed Harris and his son.
See, Ed and Liam were the best of buddies when they were young, and neither of them have forgotten their friendship. Liam inexplicably shows an inability to do anything right, but Ed keeps him going out of friendship and love. Needless to say, the bond they feel as lifelong friends can only take this movie so far. They need to turn on each other, and so they do.
When Liam's upstanding son witnesses something terrible that Ed's son does, things spiral out of control. Liam is the hero in this film (despite his massive body count) so he tries to be reasonable, and Ed will have none of it. So, the race through the night goes on. Yes, this movie is very much a Taken movie. Yes, it is a take on the Steven Seagal movie Out for Justice with better acting and a slightly better writer of dialog.
We add Common for a bit of mystery and misdirection as the hired hitman who is out to kill Liam, because he can't just have one guy after him, can he? Oh, and he doesn't. Nope, I'm not talking about Common as this mysterious and technologically capable hitman. I'm referring to Vincent D'Onofrio as the one good cop in a city of nothing but bad cops who are all on the take and being paid by Ed and know what Ed wants at all times, even though you'd think that not enough time had passed for the word to get out.
It's not a bad movie, but it's not a great movie. It takes a bit of Taken, a bit of this, and a bit of that. The end result is a movie that is entertaining enough to sit through and come out of thinking you didn't waste your time or money, but it's not enough to make you think you should watch it again or that most of the people you know should sit down and watch it.
Direction was good
Story was bland
Dialog was okay
Acting was good
Action was fairly good
Bottom Line: This is very much within Liam's current wheelhouse. It is a solid enough movie with bright spots
2.75/5