60% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 131 reviews)
Runtime: 114 minutes
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Liam Neeson, Joel Kinnaman, Ed Harris, Boyd Holbrook, Vincent D'Onofrio
From: Warner Brothers
Yesterday afternoon I went to the local cineplex to see a recent theatrical release. It happened to be this one, a movie that hasn't done well at the box office but alas... the Letterboxd review is below and I'll return Sunday afternoon.
I'll be honest and say that I haven't seen the previous efforts between Liam Neeson and director Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown and Non-Stop; I've heard real mixed things about both) but I decided to check this out, due to the cast and the plot sounding “serious” with some action and between that, the good buzz and the great posters, and I was sold... even with the bad box office.
The movie was more serious than I expected; “sour”, “downbeat”, and “unpleasant” are also terms I can use in this story of Irish ex mob enforcer Jimmy Conlin (Neeson) who is a broken down old drunk. He used to work for boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). Their sons meet each other again under unfortunate circumstances; while Maguire's son Danny is a drug-abusing punk who causes a lot of problems, Conlin's son Mike trains at-risk kids in boxing at a small gym. Bad things happen and Shawn is looking for revenge, so Jimmy has to help out his son, but Mike hates his dad for the life he had and all those people he killed. Will they get along and come to more of an understanding of each other?
I have a feeling this review will come off as more negative than I want to; after all I am rating this as 3 out of 5 stars. It's just that I've seen some strong reviews for it and I can't quite feel the same way. I definitely have no issues with darker stories or those where most of the characters are pretty bad people. It's just that with me personally all the negativity, dourness, and anger started to wear me down. Also, this is uneven, with some one dimensional characters and story issues (did we really need to see part of the finale at the beginning? In this case, no).
Yet, I still say that this was fine as the general idea of this taking place in a 24 hour period is cool, New York City in the evening hours looked pretty cool, there were memorable bits and the best moments were when old veterans Neeson and Harris interacted with each other. The score from Junkie XL was pretty rad too. Maybe my expectations were too high but at least I did not hate this. If only the action stuff would have been filmed in a clearer manner... at least I was able to laugh at hearing one of the most popular songs from the band Dope get used in a big 2015 film.
As some people out there got pretty upset that a surprise unbilled cameo in this was spoiled by certain reviewers, I know not to do it myself, except to explain that there's a small role in this from a famous actor and while I wouldn't have minded a larger role for someone of their talents, I was greatly amused by the way they looked here. But in my eyes, among the director's work that I've seen I clearly prefer the zany Orphan to this.
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