Jamie
It’s been a wild ride for BMT Live! this year. Our qualification system is built for yesteryear and there are two compounding things occurring in films right now. One is that the way films are released is rapidly changing. Things go to streaming way quicker now (our last Live, Meg 2, is already there) and so often have very limited releases, which makes it way harder to understand what a “wide release” even is. Additionally (and more insidiously) films are just better reviewed now. There is some recent reporting from Vulture that reveals some of why that is, but the why is less important than the simple fact that we are rapidly approaching a critical point. There might very well be a year where we don’t even get 13 films with reviews poor enough to qualify for BMT (a minimum quota). I’m sure we’ll write a lot more about this in the future as there is only one word that adequately describes this dire situation: tragedy. Fortunately Liam Neeson is working diligently to help our cause. We thank him for his service (and hope that we don’t find out that we’re dealing with a Bruce Willis scenario).
To recap, Liam Neeson is a kind of skeezy hedge fund manager whose wife wants to divorce him and kids think is just a workaholic liar. They are correct as we find that his fund is in deep shit. But he’s about to find himself in even deeper shit when he gets a call and is told that a bomb has been placed under his car seat and will blow up if he tries to leave. Forced to follow the directions of the anonymous voice (and fearing for his kids’ lives, who also happen to be in the car) he drives his way around Berlin witnessing other cars explode from the comfort of his luxury Mercedes. Mercedes… if you can’t leave your car for fear of exploding, you better make it a Mercedes. First it’s a coworker of his and then it’s his partner, Anders. Additionally, he’s forced to have his wife pick up some money during which he finds out about the divorce. During one of the explosions his daughter is seriously injured and he becomes enraged. He turns into The Neeson and Tokyo Drifts his way into a tunnel where the lack of cell phone service allows him some separation from the voice. After allowing for his kids to be rescued, The Neeson Tokyo Drifts his way out of the tunnel and back in pursuit of the baddie. After luring him into the car it’s revealed to be Anders (what a twist!). He faked his death and is doing it for those sweet dollar dollar bills y’all. The Neeson is like “oh yeah?” and crashes his car in the perfect way to allow for him to escape and Anders to explode. Hooray! Although, he probably still gets divorced. THE END.
There are two things amusing about this film. One is just how similar it is to the BMT classic Getaway. Anonymous voice, vast conspiracy, family in trouble. We were both hoping beyond hope that this film would end in a similar way to that one: the voice reveals that it was all a ruse in order to allow Neeson to realize that he can still pursue his auto racing career. But alas, the twist here is much less goofy. The second is obviously the inevitable comparisons to the other recent Neeson action dreck. Interestingly, this came out pretty favorably in that regard. Blacklight is terrible and Memory has some interesting things in it (but is still pretty terrible). This moved everything along quick enough to not feel trapped in the movie theater (high praise, I know). Sure the acting is horrible and it’s dumb as rocks, but it doesn’t upset me like Meg 2: The Trench. If this is the direction (and director) they go with then maybe Neeson still has a few more in him.
Hot Take Clam Bake! Uh, I think you know what happened here. Liam Neeson is a bad dad. He’s a bad dad banking dad. Everyone hates him. He hates himself. He sees on the news in the morning that there was a car bombing. He starts to day dream. It’s a world where his kids are trapped in a car with him and they are threatened. Ultimately he saves the day and they say they love him and he gets to be the big hero that kills that asshole Anders (fucking Anders). As the film ends we zoom into Liam Neeson’s eye to reveal that this was all a dream. His wife is telling him that he better hurry if he wants to get the kids to school on time, which he does… and then he gets back to cheating people out of their money. His retribution was but a dream. Hot Take Temperature: the sizzling remains of a blown up Mercedes.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! I have a new joke for you. You know how old Liam Neeson is? (How old is he?! You all cheer). Oh man, Liam Neeson is so old he now spends 90% of an action film literally sitting down and not being allowed to get up under threat of death! Let’s go!
Boy oh boy. We do sometimes make some odd choices for Lives don’t we?
In our defense this time, this film was inevitable. This wasn’t Keeping up with the Joneses where we had no business watching this and could have just forgot it existed. A new Liam Neeson film? Welp, we have to watch that.
It is a bit perplexing. Other actors, of course, have done this. Done a bunch of schlock at the tail end of their careers for retirement cash. There is nothing wrong with that. The confusing bit is how are they getting wide releases? I really don’t get it. I would have thought Blacklight and this in particular would have gone the Ice Road route and been straight to streaming.
If I had to rank Blacklight, The Ice Road, Memory, Retribution, and The Commuter (to get an even 5) it would be: (1) The Commuter, a real movie and quite fun; (2) The Ice Road, entertaining for what it is with some decent actors; (3) Retribution, sure nothing is super novel here, but it is an entertaining idea at least, good for a stream; (4) Memory, I’ve come around a bit on this, even though I still don’t like the subject matter and I think Neeson’s acting choices are odd, they at least go for something; (5) Blacklight, useless garbage.
So mid-table for recent choices by Liam Neeson (that I’ve seen), which sounds right. The son isn’t a super great actor, and the twist is pretty dumb. But it goes at a good clip, and the underlying story feels a little thought through.
As I said, it was inevitable that we’d see it so it was unavoidable.
Theater review – As usual, quite good. I hear a lot about bad experiences these days, and I’m sure there are for Friday night horror films which would attract a lot of teens, but the days/times we go seem to be pretty light and I haven’t had a bad experience in the theater in quite a while. This was no different, although I was shocked that anyone was in the theater for a 2PM Labor Day showing of Retribution.
Obviously the film was huge on car Product Placement (What?) which included Neeson’s 100 thousand Euro Mercedes, and Modine’s Maserati. Great European Setting as a Character (Where?) for Berlin, which ended up being vital to the plot, what with their famously punctual train system. And a Worst Twist (How?) obviously for the reveal that Modine faked his own death in order to steal the 200 million Euro finance fund and frame Neeson for it. This is a Bad film, just not enough there to sustain any sort of BMT interest.
Read about my prequel to Retribution in the Quiz. Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 