The ice! The road! The Ice Road!
BQB here with a review of Liam Neeson’s latest action flick.
Did you ever wonder what would happen if Ice Road Truckers was turned into a movie? This is it. Ice road trucking finally hits the silver screen.
Liam, who apparently does 100 old man action flicks a year in his sleep now, stars as Mike McCann, an old trucker recently fired after punching out a fellow trucker who was making fun of his brother, Gurty, (Marcus Thomas) a war veteran who suffers from PTSD and aphasia, meaning everyone’s trying to put the poor guy in a home which would be a waste as he can take apart and reassemble a truck engine like nobody’s business.
Long story short, a bunch of miners get trapped in a mine after a gas explosion caves them in. Holt McCallany, the toughest tough guy to ever come out of Netflix, plays the head miner who has to keep the other miners from flipping out while the company assembles a rescue team.
Said team takes the form of Liam’s Mike and brother Gurty, Tantoo, a sassy Native truck driver Tantoo (Amber Midthunder) and Laurence Fishburne as Jim Goldenrod, who must drive a three truck convoy over the icy roads that traverse various bodies of water in the icy depths of Canada. As we are told in great detail, ice road trucking is a dangerous feat, for to drive too fast or too slow or to make any mistake, really, will result in a big rig and its driver plunging into the ice, never to return. One wonders why anyone does it in the first place, though I suppose those who dare are super macho and deserving of much praise.
Ah, but there is danger afoot as evildoers want to stop the convoy from bringing the much needed rescue equipment to the collapsed mine. Much to my surprise, Matt McCoy is the villain of the film, and I haven’t seen that guy in a movie since he played Mahoney’s replacement in the later installments of the Police Academy movie series.
Overall a fun film, though you might have to suspend disbelief and not ask yourself questions like, “Wouldn’t a professional mining company already have life saving equipment on site?” and “Would anyone really want to stop a life saving convoy from reaching its destination?” and “Has Liam Neeson made a deal with the devil that allows him to play the tough guy in every action movie until he turns 100?”
It is pretty cool that Netflix made this movie. Their flicks have been a little lackluster as of late, so this one’s worth a watch.
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