Although the American private detective story traditionally
takes place in California, especially in Los Angeles, many contemporary writers
set their works in other locales, some of them actually quite implausible. A
surprising number of stories these days deal with small towns, which hardly
abound in enough murders, missing persons, stolen jewels, and similar problems
to keep a private eye in business. The fine Matthew Scudder series by the
prolific Lawrence Block, however, maintains much of its credibility through its
remarkably faithful depiction of New York City, surely a prime location for
criminal activity and the work of his unofficial sleuth.
One of the most compelling features of Block’s fiction is its
close attention to the boroughs and neighborhoods of New York, whether
Washington Heights, where the picture opens, the posh Upper East Side, or Borough
Hall, an area in Brooklyn, all of which appear convincingly in the movie. (Ironically,
the only previous Scudder novel to be filmed, “8 Million Ways to Die,” starring Jeff Bridges, was relocated to — where else? —
Los Angeles). The urban settings of “A Walk Among the
Tombstones,” following the novel with some fidelity, look very much like the
real thing.
Liam Neeson plays Scudder, an
unlicensed investigator who sometimes, as he says, does favors for friends, who
then sometimes give him presents, i.e. cash. A former cop with a heavy load of
guilt from an accidental shooting that took a child’s life, and a recovering
alcoholic, Scudder spends some of every day attending Alcoholics Anonymous
meetings, which punctuate the plot; the famous 12 Steps of the AA program even
provide a kind of coda for the violence that explodes at the climax of the
film.
A fellow AA member asks Scudder to help his brother, a
big-time drug dealer named Kenny Kristo (Dan
Stevens), whose wife has been kidnapped, tortured, and eventually
murdered. His money makes Kristo an appropriate target for the criminals and his
means of earning it makes it unlikely that he would call in the police — he’s
the perfect client for a completely unofficial detective.
Unwilling to investigate until he hears of the brutality of
the kidnappers, Scudder goes about his business in a convincingly low-key
manner, talking to witnesses — who often provide conflicting information — following
slim leads, conducting some tedious research. He accidentally picks up an
assistant, a smart street kid named TJ (the actor calls himself Astro), who
knows about Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, emphasizing sometimes comically the
contrast between Scudder and the private eyes of the great American tradition.
The central mystery, which
essentially reveals itself about midway through the picture, counts for less
than the gradual disclosure of Scudder’s character, through his methods, his
words, and even his talks at his AA meetings. Scudder’s mixture of reticence
and openness, irony and sympathy, bluntness and delicacy, passivity and action,
combine to create a complex and fascinating figure. Though reluctant to use
force, he finally solves his case through bloody violence.
The villains in the movie, played by David Harbour and Adam David Thompson, attain a special level of
viciousness that separates them from others of their kind, in cinema or real
life. Not content with simple kidnapping, they like to maim and mutilate their
victims, apparently out of the sheer perverse pleasure of inflicting horrible pain.
Their final actions also suggest that there is no honor among thieves.
His roles in the “Taken” series (now a franchise), “Unknown,”
and the recent “Non-Stop” turned Liam Neeson into a
something of an action hero, though one with a certain quality of gentleness. That
gentleness conditions the character he plays in “A Walk Among the
Tombstones,” a wounded, vulnerable man
wised up to the ways of the world, but burdened with a complicated past, a
crippling weakness, and a pervasive sense of regret. Neeson
possesses a powerful screen presence and the ability, so important for film
acting, of suggesting a good deal through understatement and even silence: in
the movies, less is usually more.
The conclusion of the film and the interesting relationship
between Scudder and TJ suggest that Scudder also might turn into a series
character. Lawrence Block’s novels certainly provide enough material to keep
the character going for some time, a most desirable possibility.
This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2014.
