"Run All Night" Feels Awfully Familiar

Run All Night (2015)

Rated R

Starring Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, Joel Kinnaman, Boyd Holbrook, Vincent D'Onofrio

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

The Story:

Jimmy Conlon (Neeson) has a choice to make tonight. His son, Mike (Kinnaman) was about to be killed by Danny Maguire (Holbrook) so Conlon shot him and killed him. The problem? Maguire's dad, Shawn (Harris) is the mob boss that Jimmy works for. Shawn is now going to kill Mike first, and then Jimmy unless Jimmy can save them both and kill all of Maguire's men, and possibly Maguire himself, first.

It's going to be a long night!

And at almost 2 hours, it really is quite a long night.

The latest in the string of get Liam Neeson to play his Taken role and shoot the bad guys while escaping.

This one falls squarely between Non-Stop and A Walk Among the Tombstone, and behind Taken.

The movie crackles with Neeson or Harris, sadly the two barely share any screen time together, and again, after 90 minutes of watching Neeson dispatch anyone and everyone, the movie plays like a deja vu film reel versus something new and exciting.

Even D'Onofrio is mostly wasted as the cop who wants to arrest Jimmy, and has been trying for years but can never pin anything on him. He spends what little screen time he has 5 steps behind the action.

Pity.

 Final Grade: C- range.

Never Fly "Non-Stop" With Liam Neeson

Non-Stop (2014)

Rated PG-13

Starring Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore,

Directed by Jaume Collett-Serra

The Story:

Bill Marks (Neeson) is an Air Marshal. Boarding a flight to London, he begins to receive texts on his secure phone. If he doesn't pay a huge ransom, passengers will start being murdered every 20 minutes. As if on cue, the body count starts piling up, but on a flight full of red herrings and authorities on the ground thinking Marks has gone rogue, the odds are stacked against him.

First bad guys stole his family.

Now they've stolen his plane!

Wait, wrong movie franchise.

:)

Neeson has reinvigorated his career as the quiet, angry man who gets things done.

I've enjoyed both Taken films and found The Grey, well, to be less than spectacular.

This one is much more in line with the Taken franchise, along with every other action hero against the odds film ever made.

As the movie rolls along at a fairly quick pace, passengers are revealed as suspects, get cleared or wind up as victims at a rapid pace.  Soon, much like Neeson, you're wondering who really is the hijacker?

Then you begin to wonder...

Is Neeson suffering from split personality disorder?

Now the trick will be to see if they bring this back with a sequel?


Final Grade: C+

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: Pretty good flick, but not a whole lot of replay factor in it once the mystery is solved.