Bookshelf Q. Battler here. I snuck out while the Yeti was playing Tapper to take in a movie tonight. Hate to say it, but the Yeti has become less of a captor and more of an annoying uninvited house guest.
But I digress.
Regrets? Liam Neeson’s Jimmy Conlon has had a few and they’re all catching up with him over the course of one non-stop, action packed night.
Movieclips Trailers
Ever since Taken, Neeson has had a resurgence, moving from dramatic actor to tough guy action star. In most of these films, he’s calm, cool, collected. Surprisingly, in this film we see a divergence. Neeson still plays a man you want on your side if you’re in a pinch, but he’s also a bad guy. Worse, he’s not just any bad guy. When we’re introduced to Jimmy, he’s a sloppy, slobbering, lowlife drunk, depressed over a life spent being a murderer for his longtime friend and mob boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). Of course, Jimmy sobers up quickly as he can’t be expected to take out one goon after the next in an inebriated state.
Michael Conlon (Joel Kinnaman from last year’s Robocop reboot) hates his father and avoids him all costs in the name of living a law abiding life. Unfortunately, he ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time when he inadvertently witnesses Maguire’s son Danny (Boyd Holbrook) shoot some Albanian drug dealers during a deal gone awry.
Danny tries to shoot Michael so as to leave no witnesses but ends up being shot by Jimmy. Maguire vows revenge against his long time friend and criminal associate and has a seemingly endless supply of degenerate henchmen to lob at the father-son duo as they navigate their way through the streets of New York City.
Common provides a chilling turn as stone cold hit man Andrew Price, dispatched by Maguire to take the Conlons out. Vincent D’Onofrio also submits an emotional performance as Detective Harding, the good cop who has been hunting Jimmy for twenty-five years, only to see every case he’s brought against the mob murderer fall through the cracks of a corrupt justice system.
And yet, the rub for Harding is that on this particular night, Jimmy is not the bad guy, so the detective is struck with the unenviable task of having to help a man he despises do a good thing – i.e. save the lives of Michael and his family.
Why is revenge such a powerful force that it makes men blind to the realities around them? Maguire knows his son did wrong. He knows Jimmy just did something any father would do. Even so, Maguire is out for blood and it is a bit heartbreaking to watch as a duo with a thirty year friendship take each other on.
Nick Nolte makes a quick cameo and, well, not to put the guy down because, hey, time eventually comes for all of us, but it did take me a second to realize it was Nick Nolte.
The film moves at a mile a minute pace and never slows down. If you’re looking for a good Spring action flick, you won’t be disappointed.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy
Bookshelf Battle 