He’s got a particular set of skills…if only he could remember them.
BQB here with a review of the latest Liam Neeson flick.
About 15 years ago, Liam Neeson had a surprise hit with “Taken” and thus ushered in a new era where he was reinvented as an old man action movie star. It’s not like he had much competition because Hollywood would rather lose millions than put a macho man on screen but that’s another post for another time.
I’ll be honest, none of the Liam action flicks that came next ever matched up to Taken, even Taken 2 and 3 (you’d think these idiots would stop letting themselves get taken). Like M Night Shyamalan who made one great movie with a fantastic twist at the end only to make a dozen movies with stupid twists at the end, Liam could never quite capture lightening in the bottle.
That’s not to say EVERY Liam action film was bad. There were many that are worth your time. A few that come to mind – The Commuter, The Ice Road and 2019’s Cold Pursuit blends dark comedy and action together such that in my mind, it’s the only one that comes close to living up to the Taken legacy.
But since 2020, Liam has released a string of movies that were, in my opinion, total dogshit. They just seemed like a cash grab, someone slapped together a bare bones action movie flick script and stuck the old guy in there for a pay day. The last couple I literally only watched half before I said eff it and turned it off because I was so bored I couldnt get through the last half.
And worse, all his latest movies feature him as an old tough guy who is dying from something and has to make amends before he croaks, and they crowbar a romance in for him with a 40 year old woman because God fordbid a 70 year old movie star be seen on screen with a 70 year old woman.
Anyway…now that preamble is out of the way, let me tell you about this movie where Liam once again stars as an elderly tough guy who is dying from something and has a romance with a 40 year old woman crowbarred in. This time I made it through the end. You might say I had to since I bought a ticket to see it in the theater but I wouldn’t steer you wrong. If I streamed this one on Netflix I’d still watch it till the end because it is better than his usual slapped together faire.
Liam stars as a no named (credited as “The Thug”) aging gangster who has lived a total scumbag’s life. He does jobs for Boston mobster Charlie Connor (Ron Pearlman) and has been given the task of teaching Connor’s hothead young son Kyle (played by Daniel Diemar) how to make it in the criminal underworld so he can take the reigns one day from his equally elderly Pops. The Thug’s advice for the youngblood? Just don’t do it. This is the kind of life that you do because you HAVE to but when you come from money, you’ll never make it. You’ll never be able to bring yourself to do the things you have to do to make it as a criminal if you can afford not to.
A chance encounter with “The Woman” (boy this movie likes to withhold names) played by Yolanda Ross begins a romance between two people who understand each other. Both have lived lousy lives and both understand the pain the comes with having to do things that are morally wrong just to live another day.
It looks like this romance might bring one small sliver of sunshine into the life of an old man who has known nothing but pain when he starts noticing he is forgetting little things. A diagnosis of a brain disease comes with terrible news – his memory will slip more and more until he will no longer be able to take care of himself. Throughout the film we see him forget more and more and it comes with the anger and violent rage that often comes when similarly afflicted people are frustrated when they can’t remember basic things.
Thus, the clock starts ticking. With a notepad to remind him of the deets, Thug sets out to make amends to those he has wronged, in particular his estranged daughter who hates him and wants nothing to do with him and a victim of one of his recent crimes that he never intended to victimize. To level up the stakes, someone is trying to kill him and he needs to figure out who.
Overall I give it a solid B. It’s worth your time. Not sure its worth a trip to the theater but definitely stream it someday. You won’t want to watch it again and again and in 6 months, you will have forgotten it, not because you have a brain disease but because it isn’t that memorable.
I will say though the title of the movie is “absolution” and it is film about a man trying to make up for past sins. It’s a film about intergenerational trauma, as Thug’s daughter explains, Thug is bad because his father was bad as was his father before, all the way back to the first “asshole caveman who spawned them all.” We carry pain our parents pass down and we have to try to not pass that pain on to our kids even though we often can’t help but do so even when we are trying not to. And we never truly start to get better until we admit we have done wrong and try to make amends with those we have wronged. So it does have a good message about how its impossible to change yet you don’t get better until you try to change. If that makes sense.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Bookshelf Battle 