With his recent announcement that he plans on giving up on action films in two years, Liam Neeson has finally come to the same conclusion that many in his fanbase have: the middle-aged ass-kicker routine is growing stale. Since Taken took him from respected Oscar nominee to bankable box office champ, he’s made 11 films that fall into the category of over-the-hill hero metering out postmodern genre justice.
Most of these efforts have been mediocre at best, failing to fully realize the potential in placing Neeson in such situations. Luckily, director Jaume Collett-Serra, armed with some filmmaking flourishes of his own, has worked with the actor before (Unknown and Non-Stop). He seems to understand the inherent likeability in his star, even when he’s snapping necks and blowing out brains. Run All Night has its issues, but Neeson is not one of them. In fact, along with his capable costar Ed Harris, they’re the reason to sit through this paint-by-numbers crime thriller.
The camaraderie between the two is palpable. They play brothers in crime Jimmy Conlon (Neeson) and now mob boss Shawn Maguire (Harris). The former works for the latter as a reliable and deadly hitman, though he’s become a bit too fond of the bottle as of late. In the meantime, Shawn’s son (Boyd Holbrook) has been trying to work a heroin deal with some deadly Eastern Europeans. When his father refuses to back his business plan, the kid grabs a gun and shoots up the place. It just so happens that this gangland killing occurs right in front of Jimmy’s ex-boxer turned limo driver son Mike (Joel Kinnaman). Naturally, all witnesses have to be silenced.
If you’ve seen the trailers, you basically know the rest. Jimmy kills Shawn’s son just as he is about to do the same to Mike. Shawn vows revenge on the whole Conlon family. Jimmy promises to do everything he can to protect them, including working a deal with a determined detective (Vincent D’Onfrio) who wants to close the books on decades of unsolved murders. When his own men fail at finishing off the father/son combo, Shawn hires an outsider (Common) who is glad to take them out. Naturally, it all ends in a wooded cabin with an injured Jimmy doing his best to his boy safe.
There are missed opportunities in abundance throughout Run All Night. Shawn’s relationship with his son makes no sense. We’ve seen something similar in John Wick, but at least there the mob boss father understood that, if sonny boy screws up, sonny boy pays the price. For Shawn to focus his rage at Jimmy, then, is merely a plot device, a painful personal vendetta with no history to add heft. Sure, there’s a scene where Shawn and his wife crumble into a pile of destroyed parenthood, but we never feel like this is anything other than a way to get the story going. Another, more inventive motive would have worked better.
Common is also wasted as a slick, serious contract killer. He has the look and the moves, but we know nothing more about him. He shows up at the hour mark, initially tries to kill Jimmy, experiences a bit of a “setback” and then… nothing. He’s gone. He looks at the back of a photograph (foreboding for the last act) and then we wait. And wait. As night turns into predawn, we’re still waiting. Considering his charisma onscreen, the rapper turned actor should have been a lead. He brings a lot of menace to what is otherwise a great deal of villainous hot air.
Where the movie works is when Neeson and Harris reminisce. We learn of their past, their partnership, and their personal differences. Jimmy can’t live with himself over the lives he’s taken. They’ve also destroyed his family. Shawn keeps such stuff bottled up inside, resulting in a haggard look that speaks for decades of dealing death. Both of these men are Oscar nominees and their expertise shows when they aren’t crawling around train yards shooting at each other. Had the movie used more words and less heavily edited chase scenes, we might find ourselves liking the results more.
For his part, Collette-Serra tries to dazzle, and almost does. Each scene seems to end on an unusual freeze frame technique, the action stopping and then turning slightly “3D” while the lens zooms off to find the next set-up. There are also moments within each fistfight, each gun battle, where he slows down the action to focus on a single muzzle flare, or a particular chase angle. These flourishes add fun to what is otherwise a rather dour and depressing experience, but they also stand out among such seriousness. It’s like they belong in a different film, one with a lighter, less dire tone.
The final caveat applies to all those late comers to the Liam Neeson fan club. Just because you got a kick out of the actor and his certain ‘set of skills’ in other offerings doesn’t mean that you’re being “taken” when this film fails to match your poorly edited, handheld shaky cam idea of action. Instead, there something called “performance” being added here for your cinematic appreciation. Run All Night might be one of the reasons that Neeson is calling it quits in 2017. It shouldn’t be.