Liam Neeson

  • Honest Thief (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, November 2021) As far as the biannual Liamsploitation thrillers are concerned, Honest Thief finds itself in the average middle: Not terrible, but not particularly distinctive either. Every time I see Liam Neeson and focus more on his terrific voice is a sign that maybe the rest of the film isn’t quite pulling its weight. Our story takes us to Boston, where a master thief (Neeson), having stolen millions of dollars from New England banks, has fallen in love and is now contemplating not simply retiring, but atoning by confessing everything to the police. Having somehow not spent the money (a virtuous thief!) becomes an important point in his negotiations with a curiously apathetic FBI, especially when the policemen sent to investigate his confession end up being crooked cops more interested in the money than justice. There are plenty of problems with the premise here, starting with a supposedly master criminal not even bothering to provide the kind of details that would set his confession apart from those of mere pretenders, and short-circuit the film’s entire story. But no — before long, we’re chasing cars and shooting guns throughout the greater Boston area, not knowing who to trust. It’s all quite conventional and mildly entertaining if you’re in the mood for a straight-ahead action movie. Where Honest Thief falls short, however, is that in an increasingly crowded filmography of Neeson thrillers, it doesn’t quite have the spark of the wilder or better entries. It’s a by-the-numbers exercise, with Neeson’s presence carrying much of the film on his shoulders. It could have been worse, though, and Neeson only has so many films in which he gets to punch people in the face. Might as well enjoy what we’ve got.

  • Nell (1994)

    Nell (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2021) There are a lot of Hollywood dramatics in Nell, the story of two researchers investigating what could be a feral child following the death of her mother. Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson play the slowly-falling-in-love researchers in likable performances (as far as I can determine, the shooting of the film roughly coincided with their real-life wedding), but Jodie Foster hogs all attention as the not-so-feral-child around which the rest of the film revolves. It’s a ferocious, daring performance, especially given how much of it is in a quasi-invented language. The rest of Nell is very much aligned with the usual tropes of outsiders being taken in by so-called normal characters. There are many plot contrivances along the way, but it ends like it should with everyone being reasonably happy. It’s generally interesting throughout, and there’s more nudity from Foster than anyone would expect (it’s not a scene meant to make anyone feel good). Neeson is very solid in a role that expects him to be an anchoring presence. Much of the film takes place in well-photographed nature, making it even more alien when the film briefly retreats to a courtroom in time for a trial. Familiar but executed reasonably well, Nell isn’t meant for surprises.

  • Made in Italy (2020)

    Made in Italy (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) There is a well-worn quality to Made in Italy’s narrative that both helps it feel comfortably familiar, and makes entire sequences feel redundant. It starts as a young British man convinces his painter father to go back to their family house in Italy, with the intention of selling it so that he can buy an art gallery. Once over there, our young protagonist discovers that the house is nearly dilapidated, that heroic efforts will be required to make it sellable, and that there are plenty of unresolved issues between himself, his father and his dead mother. Much of the film is very, very familiar — to the point where we’re just waiting for a cute Italian girl to show up so that the protagonist can realize the folly of his current goal and start planning to stay and grow as a person. (Spoiler alert: this is exactly what happens.)  On one hand, this does help the film reach part of its objective as comfort viewing — the thrill of the house renovation arc is familiar, and so are the gradual romances that involve the main characters. Part of the point of Made in Italy is to enjoy the luminous Tuscan scenery, the way the house gradually becomes a terrific place to live in, and the copious references to great food. (Would it be surprising to learn that the Italian love interest is a cook? Not really.)  On the other hand, the same familiarity also requires the two male leads to work out their tragic repressed trauma in a series of conventional sequences that everyone must suffer through in order to get to the next charming bit. Writer-director James d’Arcy errs in putting too much emphasis on the melodrama at the expense of the stronger romantic/rustic qualities of the film, although it’s easy to see on the page that the dramatic material would be required to give enough substance to the result. The casting of the film is uncanny, though: Liam Neeson is up to his usual high standards as an aging artist afraid to go back over the biggest trauma of his life, but the magic happens once you realize that his son is played by his real-life son Micheál Richardson, their characters echoing the real-life grief of Natasha Richardson’s death. Knowing this, their big confrontation at the end of the film adds a bit of oomph to otherwise familiar scenes but also feels a bit voyeuristic. Still, Made in Italy does have enough going for it to be mostly charming most of the time — the third act is a bit drawn out, and you can see the pieces fall into place well before it happens, but there’s comfort in anticipating how it’s all going to come out.

  • Cold Pursuit (2019)

    Cold Pursuit (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, December 2020) Producers apparently aren’t done with Liamsploitation film, apparently, and neither am I: if you want to cast sixty-something Liam Neeson as a plow truck driver going on a rampage of revenge against the local mob for killing his son, then be my guest. But Cold Pursuit does have a slightly different flavour from other Liamsploitation films. The setting, high up in the snowy mountains, is distinctive enough. But it’s the tone of the film, adapted from Norwegian action film Kraftidioten, that makes it as distinctive as The Grey was. Here, we get a revenge story served as a very dark comedy, from distinctive angles chosen by director Hans Petter Moland (who also directed the original) to visually scratching out the names of the (many) deceased as they are taken out of the story. It’s a bit of flourish over what could have been a very familiar story of grieving dads, mob war, escalating revenge and baroque death scenes. It’s certainly watchable, and perhaps (due to its off-beat tone) slightly more memorable than other comparable Liamsploitation films. At some point, we can all have fun seeing Neeson plowing into other guys all movie long. Wait, that didn’t come out right…

  • Husbands and Wives (1992)

    Husbands and Wives (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, March 2020) One of the issues with Woody Allen and trying to separate his art from his somewhat unsettling life is that his movies are big giant signposts telling us about his state of mind at any given time. Husbands and Wives, for instance, is a tale of marital dissatisfaction that just happened to come out at the end of his relationship with Mia Farrow—with Farrow and Allen fighting it out on celluloid. Whew. There’s more, of course—the seediest things in Allen’s filmography are the constant relationships between much older men and women at most half his age, and we get that once again here—hey, Allen, can’t you at least stop writing that stuff in your scripts? As for Husbands and Wives itself, there’s a reason why it generally holds up when compared to the other Allen films of that era: the intense navel-gazing eventually leads somewhere, and the film doesn’t even unfairly evoke the memory of Allen’s comedies. The mixture of Manhattan DINK lifestyle, documentary style and messy examination of personal foibles is certainly classic Allen, done in a still interesting-enough way compared to some of his later works. He also, as usual, gets great performances from his supporting cast: Juliette Lewis makes an impression in a more sedate role than the ones she’d play throughout most of the 1990s, a rising-star Liam Neeson barges into the plot and Blythe Danner makes a very quick appearance. Husbands and Wives is a kind of film best suited for adult audiences, not so much for any risqué content than because it’s glum and unromantic about long-term relationships—and it takes some living to relate to that.

  • Excalibur (1981)

    Excalibur (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Google Play Streaming, December 2019) Coming at the intersection of Arthurian legend and the early-1980s fantasy film boom, Excalibur chooses to hold nothing back in presenting the knights of the round table in a decidedly fantastic context. Helmed by John Boorman, the film goes for maximal rule of cool—even limited by the special technology of the time, it’s meant to be spectacular with shiny armoured suits, grander-than-life soliloquies and a strong magical element. The cinematography makes great use of its Irish location, and the local casting means that this is not only one of Liam Neeson’s earliest screen credits, but also an early big-screen showcase for Gabriel Byrne, Ciarán Hinds and Patrick Stewart. Nigel Terry does well as Arthur and so does Nicol Williamson as Merlin, but it’s Helen Mirren who looks simply spectacular as Morgana Le Fay, eclipsing even Cherie Lunghi as Guenevere. The result is more impressive as a collection of nice scenes and images than a coherent plot—although my lack of enthusiasm for the Arthurian myth-making may be showing here. Still, I had a reasonably good time watching Excalibur in its overblown grandeur—it has its own strengths that manage to overcome many of its limitations.

  • The Commuter (2018)

    The Commuter (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, September 2019) The first thing that comes to mind while analyzing The Commuter is the brazenness with which both lead actors Liam Neeson and director Jaume Collet-Serra boldly recycle the bare bones of one of their previous collaborations. As with the earlier Non-Stop, here we have a disgraced cop being manipulated in finding an unknown person aboard a closed transportation vehicle. It was a plane in the first film, it’s a commuter train heading out of Manhattan in The Commuter. This being the latest in a surprisingly long-running series of action movies starring Neeson, we already know the broad outlines of the plot. Of course, this is all a big conspiracy. Of course, he’s being framed. Of course, it’s going to go from one suspense set-piece to another. Of course, we’re going to stay on the train until the bitter end. Still, even with this heavy set of baggage and expectations, I ended up enjoying The Commuter far more than I thought I would. A little bit of this is due to (still) liking Neeson as an actor. A little bit is due to being sympathetic to Collet-Serra’s directorial style (although he’s noticeably less ambitious and/or crazy in his choices here). More than a little bit of it is due to my unexplainable fascination for the Manhattan commuter lifestyle (I blame Mad Men). And most of it is due to my own fondness for high-concept action thrillers, of which The Commuter definitely is. The film has fun playing with red herrings, audience expectations and a fairly large cast of characters. I can’t say that there are major surprises here despite the red herrings—for all of the minor plot twists and the spectacular crash at the end of the second act rather than the end of the film, we know that you don’t simply use actors such as Sam Neill and Patrick Wilson in small roles without bringing them back in a significant capacity at the end. Still, it’s well-handled, effective when it needs to be, and it feels as if it systematically exhausts all of the dramatic possibilities of its setting—a very favourable thing in my own playbook. Despite reaching retirement age, Neeson is absolutely rock-solid in the lead and that does help the film gain a credibility that it would have struggled to reach with another actor in the lead. While the result isn’t earth-shattering, The Commuter does work as an exemplary thriller and that’s quite enough.

  • Next of Kin (1989)

    Next of Kin (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, September 2019) The interesting thing about going back in movie history and checking the lesser-known movies is that, from time to time, you get to discover something. Next of Kin isn’t that well known today, but have a look at this cast: Patrick Swayze, Liam Neeson, Adam Baldwin, Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton and Ben Stiller in one of his earliest roles. The premise also has some potential, what with Kentucky folks seeking revenge against Chicago mobsters who killed one of their own. Alas, the film itself doesn’t quite manage to justice either to its premise or its cast—although we do get to see Neeson, decades before Taken and the Liamsploitation craze, use his physical bulk to seek revenge for a fallen family member. Next of Kin comes closest to achieving is semi-comic potential in a climactic sequence set in a cemetery, with machine-gun-armed mobsters being outwitted by rural opponents using bows, bear traps and a bus full of snakes. But that’s a very short section in what feels like a much longer film that tries far too hard to play things seriously and ends up simply being bland. Swayze isn’t bad (especially playing off Hunt’s minor role or Neeson as his brother) but the script simply doesn’t fully seize upon what it had at its disposal. The cinematography is largely undistinguishable from countless other urban crime thrillers, and the direction isn’t much either: For all of the semi-fizz of a sequence set atop Chicago transit trains, the script itself just goes through the expected motions most of the time. Too bad for Next of Kin … but have you seen that cast?

  • Widows (2018)

    Widows (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2019) At first glance, it felt strange to have acclaimed writer-director Steve MacQueen tackle a seemingly straightforward thriller project—his movies so far aimed at more mainstream dramatic sensibilities. But “let’s wait and see” is the right kind of attitude in response to such news, and from the get-go Widows proves that MacQueen certainly know what he’s doing. Delivering on thrills while digging far deeper in its characters than most genre films, Widows tackles the heist genre with a desperate urgency for its soon-to-be-destitute characters, delivering car chases and suspense while offering a plot where a surprising number of characters aren’t always what they seem. Genre expectations are frequently dashed, whether we’re shown a municipal race where white-heir vs. black-activist isn’t a straightforward choice, where initial character impressions are misleading, and where we’re offered quite a different heist team than usual. Comparisons with Ocean’s Eight are instructive, in that Widows doesn’t think heists are comic, goes for straight hard cash rather than fancy jewelry and spends much of its time in preparation rather than execution. The ridiculously talented ensemble cast is wondrous enough—Viola Davis is ferocious here, sometimes even sexy; Colin Farrell turns in a nicely nuanced portrait that goes beyond that of an antagonist the audience is primed to hate; Robert Duvall is remarkable in three short scenes; Elizabeth Debicki is a revelation (she’s a familiar face, but never used as well as here); Michelle Rodriguez fulfills some of the promise she’s had as a dramatic actress; Liam Neeson turns in an inversion of his usual action hero roles; and Daniel Kaluuya makes for a fearsome antagonist. But the MVP here remains MacQueen, who sets up some shots so beautifully that you only realize what they mean at the end of them, with long soaring camera takes and an ability to deliver exciting action sequences like a seasoned action professional. Widows is a complete and satisfying package for crime fiction fans—a socially relevant tale of heist and personal growth, using disfavoured and marginalized heroes to heighten the stakes beyond what they usually are. There’s a place for both the comic Ocean’s series of movies and for Widows, but since there’s been a death of Widows-like films lately, this one is a welcome sight.

  • Rob Roy (1995)

    Rob Roy (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2019) Is Rob Roy the underrated Scottish epic drama of the mid-1990s? Yes. All the attention goes to Braveheart, but (dare I say it?) I preferred Rob Roy. In the subgenre of non-Englishmen being persecuted by Englishmen, it also spends a lot of time doing Scottish mythmaking, but feels more honest about it. The landscapes of Scotland are beautifully photographed, and while Michael Caton-Jones may not a particularly flamboyant director, he gets it right when it counts. His touch helps ensure that the film’s execution trumps its standard material. One element that helps Rob Roy a lot is Liam Neeson’s extraordinary performance—a role only he could play in combining his imposing physical presence with his exceptional dramatic skills. The straightforward revenge plot isn’t surprising, but it’s sufficient for the purpose of myth-making, and it all leads to a very impressive climax. The final sword-fight is a high point of action filmmaking, especially when compared to most other instances of showy sword-fighting in films—this isn’t flynning as much as it’s a credible, painfully physical sequence that still stands as an anthology piece. It’s not the entire reason to see Rob Roy, but it certainly helps cap off a well-made film that withstands comparisons with its Oscar-winning counterpart.

  • The Dead Pool (1988)

    The Dead Pool (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, November 2018) Each Dirty Harry movie gets worse and worse, and The Dead Pool marks not only the end of the series, but the cul-de-sac in which its increasing self-parody could lead. As the film begins, Harry Callahan has become enough of a celebrity that he qualifies for inclusion in a municipal death pools—that is, predictions on whether he will soon die. The plot gets going once someone decides to hasten his demise, motivated by overall psychopathy and revenge. Clint Eastwood sports yet another hairdo here, and I can’t underscore how weird it feels to see Callahan’s character in the firmly established 1980s: He’s such a creation of the 1970s that it just feels wrong to see him compose with the worst clichés of the decade, including Guns’n’Roses. (Sudden Impact, the fourth film of the series was indeed set in the eighties, but its small-town setting and early-decade product means that it still felt like the seventies.) It gets worse once you see Callahan interact with up-and-coming actors that would achieve notoriety a decade later: pay attention, and you’ll see Jim “James” Carrey, Liam Neeson and Patricia Clarkson (looking like Natasha McElhone!) in supporting roles adding to the weirdness. Mind you, the film has enough contemporary weirdness on its own—Callahan is here written as a self-parody, fully indulging in the worst traits of his character. The nadir of the entire Dirty Harry cycle can be found in the silly car chase featuring… an explosive remote-controlled car. (Nobody will be surprised to find out that Callahan’s car does not survive the film, as noticed by the characters. And we won’t bring up what happens to Callahan’s partners.) The Dead Pool feels like an overextended joke, a wholly useless entry in a constantly declining series. Amusingly enough, it’s not even included in many of the Dirty Harry compilations on the market, which should tell you enough about it.

  • Krull (1983)

    Krull (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2018) What the heck is this?!  Krull has to be seen to be believed. I don’t think it could have existed at any other time but 1983, bathing in an unholy stew of Star Wars and Conan references, before everyone woke up and realized how bad of an idea it was. An incoherent, possibly insane blend of science-fantasy, Krull goes through the motion of creating an iconography without first making sure that it has some substance. As a result, the script feels as if it’s been thrown in a blender and half the sequences improvised on the spot. The special effects go everywhere and do everything, tearing apart the flimsy story underneath. The cherry on the sundae is seeing Liam Neeson in one of his earliest roles as a bandit—Neeson looked old and physically imposing even in his twenties. Reading about the complicated, almost disastrous production of the film reminds us of everything that’s wrong about big-budget movies cashing on sudden trends—aimless direction, outclassed filmmakers, incoherent production and no central vision resulting in everything being thrown on-screen. To be fair, Krull being bad doesn’t mean that Krull isn’t entertaining—the amount of work and insanity required to complete the project can be felt even three decades and a half later, making it curiously compelling to watch if only to see what else will come up to exceed the previous scene’s inanity. We don’t always watch movies because they’re good. Sometimes, we watch them because there’s nothing else quite like it.

  • A Monster Calls (2016)

    A Monster Calls (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) There’s an interesting twist at play in A Monster Calls, in which a young boy’s grief for his terminally ill mother is explored through spectacular use of fantasy imagery. It’s not a genre fantasy film per se (in that you can argue for a rational interpretation if you try hard enough), but it’s certainly a drama enhanced with genre elements. The downside of such a distinction is that the film is never as dull as when it’s strictly realist—it’s when the story goes on imaginary tangents and a gigantic yew tree starts intervening in the plot that A Monster Calls is at its best. The stories told to the boy are executed though very stylized animation, and those moments are the highlights of the film … until the ending, in which fiction, dreams and strong emotional reactions all come together in a big catharsis of a conclusion. The art direction of the film is spectacular in those fantasy sequences, and the way the 3D art seamlessly blends itself in scene transitions is reminiscent of the best that 2D animation had to offer. Acting-wise, Liam Neeson impresses with a strong vocal performance at the tale-spinning tough-love tree. Otherwise, director J.A. Bayona’s skill in balancing the various components of A Monster Calls are on display here, all culminating in a conclusion much stronger than the rather pedestrian set-up would initially suggest. 

  • Les Misérables (1998)

    Les Misérables (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, on Cable TV, April 2017) The most famous big-screen version of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables has to be the 2012 film which adapted the musical on the big screen. I thought it was annoying, boring and exasperating, but I’m far more upbeat about the straightforward 1998 version. Featuring no less than Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush in the lead roles (with some assistance by Uma Thurman and Claire Danes, plus a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it minor role by a then-unknown Toby Jones), Les Misérables cleverly focuses on the essential aspects of the original, convincingly re-creates the historical period and manages to wring a lot of emotional impact out of its dignified treatment of the subject. It’s not exactly a thrill ride, but it unfolds at a steady pace for a historical drama, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome through repetitive musical numbers. While the 2012 version does have a few more spectacular moments (helped along by the state of special effects circa 2012 versus 1998), the non-musical version feels more focused on the story and more satisfying as a result.

  • Schindler’s List (1993)

    Schindler’s List (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2016) Whew. I’m not going to try to give a coherent review of Schindler’s List, but it has certainly earned its notoriety, awards and enduring reputation. More than twenty years later, it hasn’t aged, and in fact may have appreciated in some respects—the last sequence, presenting Holocaust survivors who have largely died since 1993, will only grow more impressive as a time capsule. Both Liam Neeson and Joseph Fiennes are terrific in their roles—there’s even a bit of canny physical casting going on with Neeson, given how his height often allows him to effortlessly become the focus of group scenes. But what’s perhaps most astonishing about Schindler’s List is how it works despite ignoring conventional wisdom. Its most transcending moments are found in digressions from the story it could have told more economically, whether it’s showing what happens to the luggage of people being hauled away to concentration camps, or a lengthy sequence detailing the liquidation of the Cracow ghetto, or another scene in which terrified women are forced into a group shower where they fear the worst. Those highlights are, at best, tangential to the film’s story about a businessman who saved more than a thousand people from being killed in concentration camps. But they pack an emotional punch that raise Schindler’s List far above countless more mechanical attempts at portraying the horrors of the Holocaust. If it means that the film is a massive 197 minutes long, then so be it: it’s so good that it passes by quickly. The essentially black-and-white cinematography is terrific, and hasn’t perceptively aged today. Director Steven Spielberg has achieved an artistic and humanitarian masterpiece here, and has done so in the same year he delivered his blockbuster Jurassic Park. Neither of these films are going away, but Schindler’s List has the added appeal that it will never be remade. Who can even pretend to retouch quasi-perfection?