There’s a reason Liam Neeson
doesn’t have an Academy Award, and that’s because as a dramatic actor, he is
just shy of awful. Yeah, he did receive an Oscar nod for 1993’s “Schindler’s
List,” but let’s admit that any one of us could get nominated in the lead role
of a Steven Spielberg Holocaust movie. When called upon to emote, Neeson is as wooden as a wagon wheel, and he’s not
improving with age. Now, perhaps he realized that as well, which might explain
his famously successful late-career transition to glowering action star. At
this, Neeson excels. His laconic charisma, towering
physicality, and wily sense of humor have elevated flicks like “The A-Team” reboot,
the “Taken” trilogy, and now “Run All Night,” more clichรฉd genre escapism about
a desperate father, made surprisingly fun by deftly crafted mayhem and a
stacked supporting cast.
Oddly, the
very first image removes nearly all suspense about where we’re headed, but the
second scene flashes back 16 hours to introduce us to Neeson’s
character, Jimmy Conlon, a deadly mob enforcer back in the day but currently a
weary drunkard keeping company with guilt and ghosts. The only person who still
cares about Jimmy is his former boss, Shawn Maguire (the reliably flinty Ed
Harris), now a legit businessman with a coked-out wild card of a son whose
murderous ways set the plot of “Run All Night” into motion. In one of those
only-in-the-movies coincidences, Jimmy’s estranged son Mike (Joel Kinnaman, “Robocop”) just happens to witness the younger
Maguire’s misdeeds, but the latter’s efforts to permanently silence the former
leave him with a fatal bullet through the carotid courtesy of Jimmy.
So “Run All
Night” is exactly what the Conlon men do (which still doesn’t excuse the lame
title), as the grieving Shawn and his square-headed henchmen pursue Jimmy and
Mike through the streets of Queens. During the occasional breaks in the chaos
the resentful Mike, now a family man himself, airs his long list of grievances
with the remorseful Jimmy, whose demanding career as an ice-veined killer
didn’t leave much opportunity for father-son bonding. The downtime also helps
to color in the shaded relationship between Shawn and Jimmy, old friends now at
cross purposes, with the vengeance-minded Shawn determined to watch Jimmy
experience the loss of a son.
But grownups hashing out their feelings
isn’t what the audience paid to see, so director Jaume
Collet-Serra (he also directed the Neeson joints
“Unknown” and “Nonstop”) stages some pretty bitchin’ action sequences. The best
of these include a cat-and-mouse hunt through a darkened residential high-rise,
with newly minted Oscar winner Common as a tricked-out hitman
harboring mystery beef against Jimmy (“I’ll kill that motherf***er for free”), as well as a breakneck car chase that weaves
through traffic on Jamaica Avenue and drove little fingernail parentheses into
my palms. “Run All Night” is nicely shot, oodles of seedy neon contrasting with
more blues and grays than the Civil War, plus Collet-Serra classes things up
with swooping CGI that soars through the boroughs as an elegant way to
transition from scene to scene.
I will say
this for Neeson: He’s usually able to raise his game
when teamed with a stronger actor. Harris and Neeson
enjoy one tense, meaty showdown in “the old neighborhood” (right outside
Madison Square Garden), scarily calm at first but quickly tacking on layers of
depth and menace. A similar uptick in talent occurs between Neeson
and character actor extraordinaire Vincent D’Onofrio
as a detective hell-bent on nailing Jimmy the Gravedigger, but Neeson is less fortunate opposite the frustratingly stiff Kinnaman, an oftentimes magnetic presence (AMC’s “The
Killing” is worth it for his performance alone) who is having a tough time
carving out his niche in Hollywood. And watch for a puzzling cameo that I’m
sorry I even mentioned.
Most
refreshingly, the film is teeming with strong female characters … Oh, of course
I’m kidding! There are only two women on hand, and they exist solely to nag and
blubber, often simultaneously. This is absolutely a boys’ “Night” out, as
Collet-Serra puts Neeson & Co. through all the
expected but entertaining paces, meaning close calls, impossible escapes,
bone-crunching brawls, and a necessary reminder that if you don’t actually see
a bad guy die, go ahead and set a place for him in the final act. He will be
there with bells on.
This article appears in Mar 11-17, 2015.
