Starring: Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens, Astro, Boyd Holbrook
Directed By: Scott Frank
This is another film in the newly minted “Liam Neeson” genre, which now rests somewhere between Action and Thriller. You know the film… someone has been taken, and only Liam Neeson can find them and invoke proper revenge/vengeance/justice. Blah blah blah. Look, I liked Taken. But if I had known it was going to continuously spawn a series of copycat films, I would have burned the film print (or computer containing the digital file) to the ground. I’m glad that Neeson has experienced a resurgence of popularity, but even he must be getting bored at being offered the same role over and over.
In this film, his Bryan Mills knockoff is a former police officer with a particular set of skills that he uses to be an unlicensed detective. Someone has been kidnapping the lady friends of drug connected unsavory types, and it’s up to him to figure out who. You might remember this film from its preview, where the guy just randomly walks off the roof. It’s in the movie, and it’s just as random in the film as it was in the trailer. Neeson gets a child sidekick in this film in the form of Astro (The X-Factor, Earth To Echo, Red Band Society). Astro helps with… nothing really. But he helps to show a softer side of Neeson’s character.
There’s nothing shocking or surprising here, and the film plays out just like you’d expect. There are no surprise killers, or interesting twists. No one appears in the final act to blow your mind. It’s a pretty bland film riding on the coattails of a successful film hoping that you like super formulaic films.
If this film starred anyone other than Liam Neeson, I’d probably have dropped this into the D range, but Neeson’s level of acting is above that of the standard “action hero types”, so he always elevates the films he’s in (which is probably why Taken was such a huge hit in the first place). He actually has a range of emotions, and even though this film gives him only fleeting moments to express them, he is able to do so.
Unless you really love Liam Neeson, I’d skip this film. And even if you do love Liam Neeson, you should still skip this film, in hopes that he’ll start being given better roles.
FINAL GRADE: C-
