Liam Neeson is a man with a very particular set of skills. Skills that he has gathered over a long period of time, or at least since 2008 when he made Taken. Now, he’s in so many low budget action thrillers you can be forgiven for forgetting this man played Oskar Schindler. Yes, Liam Neeson was the star of Steven Spielberg’s iconic Schindler’s List.
In Retribution, which Starz provided without audio description (lack of accessibility is kind of their thing), Neeson plays a man who has a family, gets in a car, and is trapped in a scenario where he can’t exit his car because his car is wired to explode, and his seat is weighted to trigger if he leaves the car. He also has his obnoxious kids in the car. And, Matthew Modine is in this. AND, Neeson’s Schindler’s List co-star Embeth Davidtz.
It’s a car centric thriller, without audio description, so of course my comment is that this is unwatchable. Even in a limited location low budget Neeson assembly line film, this is still difficult to understand. There’s a whole scene between Neeson and Modine that’s is really hard to understand, because you are under the presumption Neeson can’t leave his car, so I’m still not sure how certain things happen. In general, there are also things he witnesses, that we don’t know what just happened. There was one scene with the extras in the film screaming in reaction to… something?
It would be nice if Starz, which has been around long enough to know better, actually had audio description on their service. I’m sure they have meetings all the time about their declining subscriber ship, and how they can turn it around. Oh, I don’t know, how about not blocking the millions of potential subscribers by simply not caring enough to acquire audio description that was made for the films you already have. If Retribution went theatrical, it likely had audio description. Just use it.
Final Grade: Unwatchable
Projected Final Grade If It Had Audio Description: C, C-, D+
