The Commuter: Unknown How Liam Neeson Can Run All Night Non-Stop

Liam Neeson is a 65-year-old action star. Let that sink in for a minute. Let it also sink in knowing that he's not a 65-year-old WASHED UP action star, either. You would never see him in an Expendables film. Most of us can still picture him as a dramatic actor and by all accounts still regard him as a thespian, rather than a sell out. Somehow, after Neeson took the role in Taken, his career path took a dramatic turn to action-star and it looks like he's having a blast each time. The Commuter is no different. However, it's not so much an action movie as it is a Hitchcock-ian thriller that involves moments of violence and guns. If you're at all familiar with Neeson's non-Taken related action films, then you know exactly what to expect from The Commuter.

Neeson action movies tend to revolve around one of two things (and sometimes both): either someone he loves has been kidnapped... or he's inadvertently put into the middle of some mysterious conspiracy he has to solve and shoot his way out of. Neeson, this time, is Michael. He's an ex-cop who's been in the insurance game for the past ten years. He's also a daily commuter on a train in New York. On the day he loses his job, during his ride home, a woman (Vera Farmiga) presents him with a hypothetical question (that turns out to be not-so-hypothetical) - there is a person on the train who doesn't belong. All he has to do is find this person, plant a little tracker on him or her and Michael will get $100,000. Can he do this and make the money all the while not knowing the outcome of the other person's fate? Michael, desperate for the cash, unwittingly agrees, until he finds out he's involved in a murder conspiracy. And that's pretty much all you need to know. Letting the movie play out the rest is part of the fun.

Here's what you need to know about the quality of the film-- it's not good. If you took Neeson out of the film, and you removed some of the fun action-y moments, and you broke it down to the sum of its script parts-- it's a really poorly written film. The reason it becomes so entertaining is that Neeson still has that charm and charisma and action-star oomph that elevates the movie from shite to enjoyable. It was a movie I could laugh at while still trying to figure out the puzzle in my head. And, I'll give the story this-- there were two little twists in the film. One of them I saw coming. There's some good hand-to-hand fights in the film, a couple of decent action sequences and all the scene-chewing Neeson you could want in a moviegoing experience. And, at the end of the day, that's all I really came to this movie to see anyway. Director Jaume Collet-Serra is on his FOURTH film with Neeson. He previously directed him in Unkown (forgettable), Non-Stop (forgettable), and Run All Night (forgettable, but really good). They know what kind of movie they want to make together. And the end result is usually the same-- you'll have a decent time watching it. You'll laugh at some of the terrible dialogue and some of the cheesy CGI and the preposterousness of the story in general... but you'll be entertained. Then, a week after seeing the movie, you'll forget it entirely. This is exactly what happens with The Commuter.

I had a lot of fun laughing at the good and the bad in the film. Patrick Wilson's character is basically there to give us past-history-Neeson exposition... like in a really obvious way. Vera Farmiga shows up for two minutes on screen, then disappears to be a voice on a phone. There are so many plot holes, you start to just let them happen without even questioning them. The train-derailment scene is so hilariously bad, you forget you're watching a movie in 2018. Sam Neill shows up for a couple of minutes for some reason. There's a fist-fight that's pretty much entirely CGI'd (I don't know, maybe Neeson was too old that day). And it's all really, really terrible-- but in a fun way. I had a really fun time watching this movie for a few reasons. One, I knew what to expect. I've seen ALL the Neeson action films and I know the level of cheese that will inevitably accompany them. Two, I'm a not-so-closeted Neeson fan and in my eyes, his acting choices can do no wrong. And three, I love bad action movies. If any of this fits in with your criteria of what you look for in a movie, then The Commuter is for you. If you've seen and liked ANY of Neeson's past action movies, you will like this one. If you're expecting a solid script, decent acting, a hefty amount of sharp action, and a story that makes sense for the majority of its runtime-- maybe skip this one for now. Or see it. Who cares. You're gonna forget what you watched shortly after, anyway.

B-