(As always, potential spoilers ahead)
Anyone else here remember Taken? Okay dumb question, but I mostly just wanted to point out how awesome it is that a guy like Liam Neeson could start taking on action roles that late in life (I know he's not that old but most of the other big action heroes started younger than he did). So any chance we get after that to see him doing it, kind of has to try and live up to Taken. Now we all Taken 2 pretty much sucked, but how's his latest effort in A Walk Amongst The Tombstones? Let's find out.
As always, Plot Summary, Pros and Cons, Final Score. Let's get to it.
Plot Summary
Former NYPD cop turned unofficial private detective Matthew Scudder (Liam Neeson) is hired by drug dealer Kenny Kristo (Dan Stevens) to find the people who killed his wife. As he follows the trail, he finds himself drawn more and more into the dark side of New York City.
Since this is primarily a mystery film (or crime thriller), that's as far as I'm willing to go plot wise, but also because well.....
Pros - The plot is actually interesting. Simplistic, but interesting. Liam Neeson also does well here as the bitter former cop trying to do good. The side characters are also interesting for the most part, but the thing that I strangely like the most was the time period. 1999. Yeah, the film takes place in 1999. Why do I like that so much? Because trying to tell a story like this in the present setting just wouldn't work. People having to use pay phones, or the first generation of cell phones really adds to some of the tension when you realize that they don't have such luxuries like texting or taking photos with them and it helps the story play out well.
Cons - While everyone and everything is working well, the movie really doesn't build up on it. There's no really intense moments, and the shocking moments mostly fall flat. There's one point in the film that I won't spoil, but myself and a few other people saw it coming, so when it happened, it lost all it's shock value. Most of the side characters are underutilized, especially Brian "Astro" Bradley as TJ. I wish they could've found more for him to do because he is actually an interesting character. I'm not really sure how much more I can say, I enjoyed it, but it couldn't raise itself any higher than just being alright.
Final Score - 6/10
It is definitely better than average, but it really doesn't try and make itself a stand out film. I really wish I could've liked it more, but I can recommend it if you're really looking for something to watch this week. Especially on cheap tuesday.
Looking over my schedule for releases, I realize the equalizer is coming out next week. Another film about an older action star trying to do what he thinks is right. Will it do better than AWATT? You'll have to wait until the review to find out, but until then, I'll see you guys at the movies.
(Reminder: I will be posting a think piece tomorrow.)
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