Opened 40 Years Ago: EXCALIBUR (4/10/1981)

 

EXCALIBUR opening in Toledo, OH on 4/10/1981

In Theaters: COLD PURSUIT (2019)

COLD PURSUIT
(France/UK - 2019)

Directed by Hans Petter Moland. Written by Frank Baldwin. Cast: Liam Neeson, Laura Dern, Tom Bateman, Tom Jackson, Emmy Rossum, Domenick Lombardozzi, Julia Jones, John Doman, William Forsythe, David O'Hara, Nicholas Holmes, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Michael Eklund, Raoul Trujillo, Michael Richardson, Gus Halper, Arnold Pinnock, Bradley Stryker, Wesley MacInnes, Elizabeth Thai, Aleks Paunovic, Glen Gould, Michael Adamthwaite, Kyle Nobess, Nels Lennarson. (R, 118 mins)

An almost scene-for-scene English-language remake of the 2014 Norwegian film IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE by the same director (Hans Petter Moland, who also helmed DEPARTMENT Q: A CONSPIRACY OF FAITH), COLD PURSUIT is perfectly-tailored for the now-decade-long "revenge thriller" phase of Liam Neeson's career (the actor has said this might be his last film of this type). Its opening hijacked by the fallout of an honest but ill-advised Neeson revelation on the press junket--and really, who better to judge a reactionary, knee-jerk response to a violent incident involving a close friend from over 40 years ago by a young man who came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s during the sociopolitical upheaval of The Troubles in Northern Ireland than uber-woke and perpetually-offended Vulture and AV Club contributors in their mid-twenties who may not even be aware of Neeson's career before TAKEN?--COLD PURSUIT would, at first glance, appear to be the now-customary winter Neeson revenge offering. But if you've seen IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE or are at least familiar with its black comedy elements, it's something else entirely. Thanks to the genre expectations that come from Neeson rather than the original film's Stellan Skarsgard, COLD PURSUIT is an irreverent, witty, and frequently laugh-out-loud absurdist revenge thriller that feels like an in-his-prime Charles Bronson starring in a Coen Bros. movie. It works at its own pace and on its own wavelength, and everything about it just feels wonderfully offbeat and a bit off-kilter. It's a risky gamble for those expecting another TAKEN and it won't appeal to everyone, but once you're in sync with its oddball stylings and rhythms--it takes some time before it's clear that you're supposed to be laughing at most of this--it's an inspired blast filled with clever callbacks to earlier incidents and numerous visual gags, and it's vividly brought to life by Neeson and a terrific ensemble cast.

In the remote Colorado skiing town of Kehoe, local snowplow driver and man-of-few-words Nels Coxman (Neeson) barely has time to celebrate being named Kehoe's Citizen of the Year for his tireless efforts at keeping the main road clear before he and his wife Grace (Laura Dern) are dealt a tragic blow: their only son Kyle (Michael Richardson, Neeson's eldest son with late wife Natasha Richardson), a baggage handler at the local airport, is found dead from a heroin overdose. Insisting his son wasn't a junkie and that there must be some explanation for his death, Coxman embarks on what's initially the usual Neeson path of vengeance but one that's quickly defined by numerous unpredictable twists and turns. He offs a couple of low-level guys who turn out to be flunkies of Denver-based drug lord Trevor Calcote, aka "Viking" (Tom Bateman). When three of his guys turn up missing (Coxman has wrapped them in chicken wire and tossed them off a gorge into the ice-cold rapids on the outskirts of Kehoe), Viking is certain it's the beginning of a turf war with White Bull (Tom Jackson, presumably because Wes Studi and Graham Greene were busy), a Native American crime boss based in Kehoe who clashed with Viking's late father decades earlier (the cultural aspects and the oft-mentioned legality of weed in Colorado are the major structural diversions from the Norwegian original). At this point unaware of Coxman, Viking has White Bull's adult, first-born son killed and strung up on a road sign outside Kehoe, an unprovoked attack that breaks decades of peace and leads to White Bull planning the retaliatory kidnapping of Viking's classical music-loving young son Ryan (Nicholas Holmes), much to the chagrin of Viking's soon-to-be-ex-wife Aya (Julia Jones). All the while, Coxman keeps upping the body count, whacking guys with names like "Speedo" and "Limbo," and even getting advice from his retired and estranged criminal brother Brock, aka "Wingman" (William Forsythe), who recommends hiring a hit man known as "The Eskimo" (Arnold Pinnock).

Coxman's killing spree mines humor from its over-the-top violence (and, yes, also his name--Skarsgard plays "Nels Dickman" in the original film), with the laughs often coming in the repetition, whether it's the soon-to-be-customary chicken-wire-wrapped corpse being thrown off the gorge ("Why chicken wire?" Brock asks his brother. "So the fish can eat enough of the body to keep it from bloating with gas and rising to the surface...I read it in a crime novel") to the names of the deceased being displayed onscreen in order of disappearance, to the point where we don't even see them being killed (maybe just a curtain being drawn or a polite request to step off an expensive rug), but the inevitability is such that it becomes a clever running gag. Other delightfully dark-humored bits range from Viking telling his bullied son to read Lord of the Flies to learn how to handle himself; local cops Gip (John Doman) and Dash (Emmy Rossum) having conflicting views on how to deal with the expanding turf war; sex-crazed Viking goon Bone (Gus Halper) endlessly crowing about the "31% success rate" of his $20 trick with motel cleaning ladies, which of course results in a great sight gag later on; young Ryan helping his father's chief henchman Mustang (Domenick Lombardozzi) with his hapless fantasy football team and pointing out that he's losing because he's starting four Cleveland Browns; and some of White Bull's crew threatening a hotel desk clerk with a bad Yelp review. Neeson is the nominal star, but he's more than willing to let almost every member of the large supporting cast get a memorable turn in the spotlight. Nels Coxman doesn't seem like he'd be a man especially adept at violence, but a throwaway line about his and Brock's father being a criminal is enough to justify his ability to navigate through this world, even though he seems to have distanced himself from it when he met Grace (the film's biggest flaw is that it gives Dern almost nothing to do). COLD PURSUIT handles its laughs without crossing the line into parody, which would've been the easy route to take for a standard-issue remake. Thankfully, this takes a more droll, tongue-in-cheek approach. Indeed, the audience seemed hesitant to laugh along at first, like they weren't sure what to make of it, but once it gets rolling and establishes itself, COLD PURSUIT won them over. Now if only people could forgive Neeson for some irrational, impulsive thoughts borne of misdirected rage that he quickly abandoned after coming to his senses decades ago.

On Netflix: THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS (2018)

THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
(US - 2018)

Written and directed by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen. Cast: Tyne Daly, James Franco, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Heck, Grainger Hines, Zoe Kazan, Harry Melling, Liam Neeson, Tim Blake Nelson, Jonjo O'Neill, Chelcie Ross, Saul Rubinek, Tom Waits, Clancy Brown, Jefferson Mays, Stephen Root, Willie Watson, David Krumholtz, Ralph Ineson, Jesse Luken, Sam Dillon. (R, 133 mins)

There's a loose, shaggy dog vibe to THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS, a six-part western anthology from the Coen Bros. Erroneously reported to be a planned Netflix series retooled as a Netflix Original film, it still feels like a feature-length pilot for a potential series that could be hosted by Buster Scruggs, the protagonist of the first segment, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs." Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) is a singing cowboy of the Roy Rogers/Gene Autry sort, but with a ruthless streak that's incongruous with his affable, folksy demeanor. He rides into the town of Frenchman's Gulch and crosses paths with the fearsome Çurly Joe (Clancy Brown), which starts the first in a series of showdowns. It's an amusing piece that's short enough to not overstay its welcome, and is a fine display of the kind of absurdist humor that defines the Coen Bros' funniest work. That same tone is apparent in "Near Algodones," with James Franco as an outlaw who messes with the wrong teller (Stephen Root) in a bank in the middle-of-nowhere desert town of Tucumcari, sending his day on a quick journey from bad to worse.

The Coens have been sitting on some of these ideas for years, and indeed, first two stories are briskly-paced and funny, almost like short sketch concepts that wouldn't have had a place in any of their other projects. BALLAD takes a much darker and almost macabre, SANTA SANGRE-like turn with "Meal Ticket," with Liam Neeson as a grubby, hard-drinking impresario traveling from town to town with Harrison (Harry Melling), an armless, legless "artist" who recites pieces of Biblical verses, poetry, and the Gettysburg Address into a sort of still-life performance art that plays to decreasing attendance as they venture to more distant areas until the impresario finds a new act and has to make a decision about what to do with his old one. "All Gold Canyon," based on a Jack London story, stars Tom Waits as a grizzled old prospector who finds a gold deposit (which he names "Mr. Pocket"). It's mostly a one-man show to a certain point, but while Waits is entertaining, this is probably the least interesting of the stories.

The fifth segment, "The Gal Who Got Rattled," based on a story by Stewart Edward White, is the longest and most substantive, with a devastating gut-punch of a wrap-up. On the arduous Oregon Trail, Alice (Zoe Kazan) is left to fend for herself when her older brother Gilbert (Jefferson Mays) dies unexpectedly. Trail boss Mr. Arthur (Grainger Hines) and his right-hand man Billy Knapp (Bill Heck) offer their condolences and bury Gilbert but they're a day away before Alice realizes their money was on his person and is now buried with him. Potential Indian attacks make it too dangerous to go back, but as they continue on the trail, a bond forms between Alice, who has no money and no one else in the world, and Billy, who wants to settle down with a family and not grow old and alone like Mr. Walker. "Gal" meanders and takes its time and doesn't seem to be headed anywhere in particular, but it sneaks up on you, and it gets a lot from a trio of outstanding performances by Kazan, Heck, and especially Hines, a guy who's been around in bit parts (he's credited as "Emergency Room Aid" in ROCKY II) and minor supporting roles for decades but has never before gotten a chance to shine like he does here.

The final segment, "The Mortal Remains," could almost pass for an old-west version of DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, with five stagecoach passengers barely tolerating one another: Irishman Clarence (Brendan Gleeson), Englishman Thigpen (Jonjo O'Neill), Frenchman Rene (Saul Rubinek), society matron Mrs. Betjeman (Tyne Daly), and a scurvy, unkempt, and extremely talkative trapper (Chelcie Ross). Disagreements abound and barbs are traded, and Mrs. Betjeman is worked into a state of apoplexy, but as its pointed out, the driver never stops. Like "Gal," "The Mortal Remains" engages in some clever misdirection by seemingly going nowhere, especially in the hilariously rambling monologue delivered by the trapper, which gives veteran character actor Ross more dialogue than he's ever had in a movie. But then Clarence calms down Mrs. Betjeman by singing an Irish ballad and the story becomes something else entirely. Its final destination may not come as a surprise, especially once O'Neill starts acting like he's auditioning for a Vincent Price biopic, but in spite of that, it becomes oddly moving.

THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS feels too cobbled together and scattershot to be top-tier Coen Bros., and despite their claims that this was its intended format all along, it really does play like the two-hour premiere of a TV series. But even in a weaker segment like "All Gold Canyon," there's joys to be had. Shot digitally by Bruno Delbonnel, the film has some stunning shots of desert and canyon vistas along with some--perhaps intentionally--dubious CGI visuals. THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS has too many positives to say it's only for Coen completists, but when their bio is written, this will be one of the peculiar outliers in their filmography. It's by no means the place for newbies stumbling upon this on Netflix and impulsively deciding to begin their Coen studies, but having said that, it's a good sampler appetizer for their unique style and the themes that have run through their work over the last four decades.

In Theaters: WIDOWS (2018)

WIDOWS
(US/UK - 2018)

Directed by Steve McQueen. Written by Gillian Flynn and Steve McQueen. Cast: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Liam Neeson, Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Jacki Weaver, Carrie Coon, Garret Dillahunt, Lukas Haas, Jon Bernthal, Kevin J. O'Connor, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Molly Kunz, Matt Walsh, Coburn Goss, Michael J. Harney, Adepero Oduye, James Vincent Meredith, Josiah Sheffie, Tonray Ho. (R, 129 mins)

Following 2008's HUNGER, 2011's SHAME, and 2013's 12 YEARS A SLAVE, British filmmaker/video artist Steve McQueen's winning streak continues with the heist thriller WIDOWS. Though it's McQueen's most commercially accessible work yet, it's got more going on beneath the surface, mixing contemporary concerns into a story with a decidedly '70s aesthetic, one that manages to be a stylish, Michael Mann-inspired crime saga, an introspective, Robert Altman-esque character piece, as well as a chronicle of big-city political corruption that feels like vintage Sidney Lumet. Based on a British TV series created by Lydia LaPlante that ran in 1983 and 1985, WIDOWS has been both streamlined and expanded for its American incarnation by McQueen and co-writer Gillian Flynn, the latter quick to point out in interviews that the one whopper of a mid-film plot development is all LaPlante, despite it having Flynn's GONE GIRL style and execution written all over it.

McQueen opens WIDOWS with an initially jarring series of smash-cut snippets that quickly settle into a masterfully economic display of concise exposition. Chicago career criminal Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) lives a life of luxury in a penthouse apartment with his wife Veronica (Viola Davis), a former rep for the Chicago teacher's union. Veronica is as aware of Harry's "business" as she needs to be and seems to feign blissful ignorance while enjoying its many financial benefits. That comes to a screeching halt when Harry and his crew--Florek (Jon Bernthal), Carlos (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and Jimmy (Coburn Goss)--are killed in an explosive shootout with police following a high-speed chase after their latest score. Immediately following the funeral, Veronica is visited at home by Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), a well-known south-side crime kingpin who was robbed of $2 million by Harry's crew. That money burned up with Harry and the others and he gives Veronica a month to get it back, threatening to send his ruthless, attack-dog younger brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya) after her if she fails to pay up.

It's a sign that Jamal isn't quite ready to let go of his past life, even as he's trying to go legit at the same time by running a high-profile campaign for alderman of the city's economically-depressed and predominantly African-American 18th Ward. It's a spot that's been held for three generations by the corrupt Mulligan political dynasty, currently being handed off by elderly and ailing Tom Mulligan (Robert Duvall) to his son Jack (Colin Farrell), the scion who's inheriting a storied legacy that he doesn't really want. With her back against the wall, Veronica reaches out to the widows of Harry's partners--Carlos' wife Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), violent meathead Florek's battered wife Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), and Harry's wife Amanda (Carrie Coon)--to carry out a haphazardly-sketched heist from a notebook of Harry's, one that will net them $5 million--$2 million to repay Jamal and $3 million to split among themselves. Amanda, preoccupied with a four-month-old infant, declines to take part, and when Jatemme kills Harry's loyal driver Bash (Garret Dillahunt) to send a message to Veronica that the clock is ticking, they need a driver. They find one in hairdresser Belle (Cynthia Erivo, so memorable in the recent BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE), a casual acquaintance of Linda's who's been babysitting her kids while Linda meets with Veronica and Alice to plan the heist.

All of these characters cross paths in unexpected ways, and WIDOWS manages to pack quite a bit into its brisk and relentlessly-paced 129 minutes. There are times where it feels like things are too simplified or convenient, most notably when Alice's gold-digging mom (Jacki Weaver) convinces her to become a de facto escort for some easy money, and her first "date" is David (Lukas Haas), who happens to be a big-time architect who spots a blueprint of the heist target on her bedside table and instantly recognizes it as a panic room and eventually helps identify its location. There's also Alice pretending to be a Russian mail-order bride at a gun show and effortlessly convincing a red-state mom to buy her three Glocks. And of course, Veronica's dog, an adorable little Westie that accompanies her everywhere, seemingly holding on to it in desperation as the last connection to a family that's been taken from her (she and Harry had a teenage son, whose death ten years earlier will prove to have a profound effect on the events that transpire), but is really there as a plot device that's instrumental in setting up that mid-film twist.

From the standpoint of commercial, mainstream storytelling, McQueen's handling of these sorts of things could use a little more polish, but WIDOWS makes up for its occasional narrative clumsiness with a stacked ensemble of award-worthy performances, the standouts being the always-galvanizing Davis, a terrifying Kaluuya, who makes Jatemme one of 2018's great bad guys, and Debicki, whose character gets the most surprising arc, revealing her unexpected smarts and ambition as the one who most transcends her lot in life as an abused doormat for her asshole husband and narcissistic mother. The political gamesmanship between Farrell's Mulligan and Henry's Jamal almost has enough going on that it could warrant its own movie, but it serves its purpose as part of a greater mosaic that McQueen is constructing, both thematically and artistically. There are several arresting visual touches ranging from the use of reflections in windows and mirrors (the final scene in the coffee shop!) to one long, uninterrupted take involving the younger Mulligan's limo that's a total knockout telling you all you need to know about his character. In the end, despite some occasional hiccups that might seem smoother on repeat viewings, WIDOWS is a terrific and compelling piece of grown-up filmmaking--the kind that can credibly and successfully coexist in the multiplex and the art-house--the likes of which we don't see enough of these days.

In Theaters: THE COMMUTER (2018)

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On Blu-ray/DVD: MARK FELT: THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE (2017) and LAST RAMPAGE: THE ESCAPE OF GARY TISON (2017)

MARK FELT: THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE
(US/UK - 2017)

A middling biopic that goes into the Watergate saga from the POV of the whistleblower, the cumbersomely-titled MARK FELT: THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE focuses on the veteran FBI company man who, 30-plus years later, admitted that he was the informant known as "Deep Throat," who regularly fed information to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. These provided some of the most memorable scenes in the 1976 classic ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, with Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat, but MARK FELT goes into what drove him to secretly talk to the press. Felt (1913-2008) is played by an excellent Liam Neeson, and as the film opens in 1972, J. Edgar Hoover has just died and Felt is generally considered by D.C. insiders as a lock to take over as director. The job goes to former deputy Attorney General L. Patrick Gray (Marton Csokas as Russell Crowe), a Nixon loyalist who also brings back disgraced agent Bill Sullivan (a twitchy and overly mannered Tom Sizemore), a longtime rival of Felt's. After the Watergate break-in, Felt leads the FBI investigation but is quickly shut down by Gray, who insists on reporting all of their findings to White House counsel John Dean (Michael C. Hall) over Felt's objections that the FBI doesn't work for the President. A frustrated Felt begins feeding info of a cover-up to Time reporter Sandy Smith (Bruce Greenwood) and eventually Bob Woodward (Julian Morris) at the Post as Gray and Dean desperately try to find the source of the leaks and protect the Oval Office.

Produced by Ridley Scott, MARK FELT was released in September 2017, just after President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey over concerns of "loyalty" and stopping an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. There's some unintended contemporary parallels with the FBI side of the story in MARK FELT and the Oval Office's misunderstanding of the limits of its power and who answers to it, and for a while, as Felt keeps digging for info and keeps being stonewalled by his own boss--this is as much about Felt butting heads with Gray as it is about Watergate--it's a compelling flip side to events seen in ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. But as the film goes on, writer/director Peter Landesman (who also wrote the underrated and little-seen KILL THE MESSENGER) loses focus. Felt's decision to become a whistleblower seems initially rooted in his bitterness at being passed over as director after 30 years of doing and saying all the right things, but as he uncovers more evidence that leads directly to Nixon's inner circle, he refuses to play along and be the good soldier that Gray expects. This sort of thing plays to Neeson's strengths, and he turns in one of his best serious performances of the non-TAKEN variety in a long time. The large cast of supporting actors (there's also Josh Lucas, Brian d'Arcy James, Eddie Marsan, Tony Goldwyn, Noah Wyle, Ike Barinholtz, Kate Walsh, and Wendi McLendon-Covey) exists primarily to dump reams of exposition, exclaim cliches ("What you're doing...will bring down the whole house of cards!"), and stare suspiciously at one another as paranoia mounts. To the film's credit, it doesn't ignore Felt's post-Watergate conviction for illegal wiretapping of the Weather Underground and other activist groups and his subsequent pardon by Ronald Reagan in 1981, but it's included almost as an afterthought and it doesn't go deep enough into his reasoning for the overzealous surveillance of those groups: his daughter Joan (Maika Monroe) ran away and joined a commune and he was trying to find her while at the same time hoping to shield her from any prosecution for things she might've done as part of these activist groups. The entire subplot about Felt's home life is botched, leaving Diane Lane with almost nothing to do but complain and guzzle wine as Felt's neglected, long-suffering wife Audrey (who would commit suicide in 1984). Both Neeson and Landesman have expressed regret that most of Lane's performance ended up being cut from the film for time reasons, but really, the whole second half of MARK FELT collapses into total incoherence and starts demonstrating all of the tell-tale signs of a movie that's been hacked to pieces in post-production (Felt is shown meeting with Woodward just one time). At 103 minutes, MARK FELT is curiously short for this kind of sweeping historical saga, almost as if Landesman was told to ditch everything that didn't involve Watergate. Sony had no idea what to do with this, even with a big name like Neeson headlining: this only made it to 332 screens at its widest release, grossing just $768,000. (PG-13, 103 mins)




LAST RAMPAGE: THE ESCAPE OF GARY TISON
(US - 2017)

A refreshingly old-fashioned B-movie of the sort that would've played drive-ins back in 1980, the true crime saga LAST RAMPAGE: THE ESCAPE OF GARY TISON deals with a prison break and subsequent statewide manhunt that took place in Arizona in July and August of 1978. The film is a gritty labor of love for veteran character actor Robert Patrick, who produced and stars as Tison, a convicted murderer and tyrannical father who lords over his three devoted sons Donnie (Alex MacNicoll), Ricky (Skyy Moore), and Ray (Casey Thomas Brown). It's his sons who help pull off the escape during a visit, with Tison's psycho prison buddy Randy Greenawalt (Chris Browning) tagging along. Weary Sheriff Cooper (Bruce Davison) leads the manhunt and, of course, it's personal since Tison killed one of his close friends, while an ambitious reporter (Molly C. Quinn) tries to get a story out of Tison's devoutly dutiful wife Dorothy (Heather Graham). Tison is a brutal, ruthless sociopath with no capacity for mercy. He's not above shotgunning a newlywed couple or a toddler if it means saving his ass, and he doesn't hesitate to point a gun at Donnie's head when the eldest son starts thinking for himself, questioning his actions and refusing to call him "sir."

LAST RAMPAGE was directed by career journeyman Dwight Little, who made his name in the horror genre back in the day with 1988's HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS and 1989's THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA with Robert Englund. Since then, he's gone wherever his services have been required, from the 1991 Steven Seagal vehicle MARKED FOR DEATH, the 1992 Brandon Lee actioner RAPID FIRE, 1995's FREE WILLY 2, and 1997's MURDER AT 1600. Little's spent most of the last 20 years as a busy TV director, and LAST RAMPAGE is his first feature film since the $30 million video game adaptation TEKKEN went straight to DVD in 2011. Little doesn't bring any real sense of style to LAST RAMPAGE, but he keeps it fast-moving and focused, like a professional B-movie hired gun knows how to do. Patrick is terrifying and oozes pure evil as the monstrous Tison, and Davison has some nice moments as the folksy, matter-of-fact Cooper, even if the character seems to be a composite of Tommy Lee Jones in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and Jeff Bridges in HELL OR HIGH WATER. The film fails to take advantage of the unusual casting of Graham, and the scenes between the subtly manipulative Dorothy and the naive young reporter don't really seem to go anywhere. Dorothy is a woman who's convinced herself of many things, and Graham seems eager to disappear into a dowdy, unglamorous role with some truly hideous 1978 eyeglass frames, but the script, written by Alvaro Rodriguez (Robert Rodriguez's cousin) doesn't really give her much to do. The supporting cast also includes Megan Gallagher as Cooper's wife, Jason James Richter (the kid from FREE WILLY) as a deputy, and the late John Heard in one of his last roles (he died two months before the film's VOD release) as the useless warden. The Tison story was told once before, albeit in a more sanitized fashion, in the 1983 ABC TV-movie A KILLER IN THE FAMILY, which starred Robert Mitchum as Tison, with his three sons played by Lance Kerwin (SALEM'S LOT), and a young and unknown Eric Stoltz and James Spader. (R, 93 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: SILENCE (2016); PATRIOTS DAY (2016); and EVOLUTION (2016)

SILENCE
(US/Mexico/Taiwan/UK - 2016)

A passion project that Martin Scorsese's had in various stages of development since acquiring the rights to Shusako Endo's 1966 novel in the late '80s, SILENCE completes the legendary filmmaker's unofficial religious trilogy that began with 1988's THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST and 1997's KUNDUN. SILENCE was already made into a movie once with a 1971 Japanese adaptation, but SILENCE '16 again demonstrates Scorsese's recurring obsessions with faith and religion, themes that go back as far as his earliest films like 1968's WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR? and 1973's MEAN STREETS. Make no mistake--SILENCE is a horse pill. It's slow-moving and sometimes punishingly long at 161 minutes, which almost seems by design to put you in the mindset of his central character. It's the kind of visually stunning epic that you rarely see any more, equal parts Werner Herzog, Terrence Malick, and Francis Ford Coppola, but filtered through the uniquely singular vision of arguably the greatest living American filmmaker. It's the reality of getting movies made today, but it's hard to believe that a director of Scorsese's reputation and stature has to get funding from a truckload of production companies (including the unlikely involvement of VOD and Redbox B-movie dealmakers Emmett/Furla Films, taking a break from being a half-assed Golan & Globus for a rare bid at respectability) from four countries with 40 (!) credited producers. C'mon, Hollywood studios. This is Martin Fucking Scorsese. If he comes to you with a project, give him the money. His films tend to stand the test of time, if that even matters anymore. Sure, they can't all be TAXI DRIVER, RAGING BULL, and GOODFELLAS, but can you name a terrible Martin Scorsese film?

In 17th century Macau, two Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, Father Sebastiao Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield, having a breakout 2016 and even better here than he was in his Oscar-nominated turn in HACKSAW RIDGE) and Father Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver) journey to Japan in search of their mentor Father Cristovao Ferreira (Liam Neeson). Ferreira's been missing for seven years, and a letter turns up in the hands of Bishop Valignano (Ciarin Hinds)--a letter the rogue Ferreira sent years earlier, indicating that he's apostasized, renouncing Christianity, leaving the priesthood and has no intention of returning from a missionary trip to Japan, where he's taken a wife and wishes to live a normal life. Instinctively concluding that this letter doesn't sound like the words of Ferreira, Rodrigues and Garupe insist on finding their teacher and embark on a trip that will draw obvious comparisons to Heart of Darkness and APOCALYPSE NOW, but also the grueling sort of quest that recalls Herzog's AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD and FITZCARRALDO, as well as Roland Joffe's THE MISSION. The missionaries will be double-crossed by guide Kichijiro (Yosuke Kubozoka), will eventually be separated, and the story will focus primarily on Rodrigues. Rodrigues clashes with Inquisitor Inoue (a scene-stealing Issey Ogata), a powerful official hellbent on stopping the spread of Christianity in Japan, and willing to torture, crucify, and kill to do so (one harrowing scene has converted Japanese Christians crucified at sea, drowned by the incoming tide, then having their bodies set ablaze so they can't be given a Christian burial). Rodrigues will eventually find Ferreira and he isn't quite the Col. Kurtz-like madman you might be expecting. SILENCE is a difficult and challenging film that has definite slow stretches but it rewards the patient viewer. The script by Scorsese and Jay Cocks unfolds like a richly-textured novel, taking its time to build and establish the characters and get you in their heads, which makes the complete experience all the more powerful. Pitched by distributor Paramount as a major awards-season contender, SILENCE played well in NYC and Los Angeles but bombed hard when it expanded into wide release, relegated to one 9:55 pm showing per day when it finally made it to my area. It was almost shut out of the Oscars, earning just one nomination for Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography. It's not the kind of film that will appeal to casual moviegoers or even to casual Scorsese fans (though it explores recurring themes in his work, its style is more Terrence Malick than Scorsese). It's an often profoundly moving film about deeply committed faith, one that's philosophical without being preachy, and if you've followed Scorsese through the years, you'll recognize his passion and his concerns, his voice coming through even though it's somewhat of a stylistic departure for him. (R, 161 mins)



PATRIOTS DAY
(US/China - 2016)

You might think it takes a special breed of asshole to bag on a movie that honors the victims and heroes of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, but it takes a special breed of asshole to create a bullshit composite character and make almost the whole thing about him. Composite characters are dramatic necessities in narrative chronicles of true events but here, it's a clumsy distraction that's alternately insulting and unintentionally hilarious. The last and by far the least of director/co-writer Peter Berg's unofficial "Mark Wahlberg: American Hero" trilogy (after LONE SURVIVOR and the underrated DEEPWATER HORIZON), PATRIOTS DAY has Wahlberg playing Tommy Saunders, a composite character created specifically for the film. Tommy, or as he'll be known from here on, "Tawmy," is a plays-by-his-own-rules homicide sergeant who played by his own rules one too many times and got temporarily busted down to patrolman. But he's free and clear and out of the doghouse after one more day--you guessed it--Patriots Day. Tawmy's got a bum knee but puts on a brace, plays through the pain, and does his jawb, and he's right there when the bombs set by the Tsarnaev brothers--Tamerlan (Themo Melikidze) and Dzhokhar (Alex Wolff)--go off. He immediately calls for backup and oversees the triage unit, and when FBI Special Agent Rick DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon) and Gov. Deval Patrick (Michael Beach) show up at the scene, they know that the only person they need to consult is, of course, Tawmy.

Tawmy's right there at the center of the action at the command center, taking charge and making sure everyone's on the same page, and thank Gawd he's there to inform DesLauriers how investigations work, imploring "Hey! Listen! I was hawmicide! Witnesses! We should talk to witnesses!  Maybe somebody saw somethin'!" as everyone within earshot nods in agreement. Yeah, because I'm sure veteran FBI Special Agent Rick DesLauriers who, according to his FBI bio, has been an agent since 1987, has no fucking idea how to do his job, so props to Tawmy for being there to show him how it's done. Police Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman) also holds back on making any decisions until he runs things by Tawmy, who's given a special role in the investigation when DesLauriers asks "Hey, you know this area pretty well, right?" because obviously there's no way any other cawp knows more about Boston than Tawmy Saunders, Super Cawp! Because Tawmy can't be there for every break in the investigation without turning the film into outright fiction, when an FBI agent spots a possible suspect in Dzhokhar in surveillance footage, the first person DesLauriers alerts to this discovery is Tawmy. Later on, Tawmy's also the cop who first spots Dzhokhar hiding in a boat in a Watertown resident's backyard, and that's not long after a shootout between Watertown cops and the Tsarnaev brothers where one Watertown cop opens fire, shouting "Welcome to Watertown, motherfucker!" It's telling that the two best sequences in the film--Chinese college student Dun Meng's (Jimmy O. Yang) carjacking by and subsequent escape from the Tsarnaevs, and Tamerlan's American wife (Melissa Benoist) being interrogated by a sinister black ops agent (Khandi Alexander, killing it in just a few minutes of screen time)--are nail-biting set pieces that don't involve Wahlberg, at least until the Zelig-like Tawmy is the one who responds to Dun's 911 call, because of course he does. Why not just make an Altman-esque ensemble piece showing how all of these people worked together in pursuit of the suspects?  PATRIOTS DAY pays a lot of lip service to the notion of a community coming together but in execution, it's almost all about Tawmy. I get that Tawmy is a symbol of "Boston Strong," but it just gets silly. Why clumsily straddle the line between paying reverent tribute and making a formulaic Mark Wahlberg vehicle, especially when the usually reliable actor responds by turning in what might be his career-worst performance (Tawmy sobbing on his couch and yelling "We're gonna get these motherfuckers!" is embarrassing)?  It's hard to take the film seriously when Tawmy seems to be the only cawp who knows what he's doing, and one with enough juice to get lippy and bark "Who the fuck are you?" to an FBI guy. The real question is "Who the fuck is Tawmy?" (R, 133 mins)




EVOLUTION
(France/Spain/Belgium - 2016)

The first film in over a decade by acclaimed INNOCENCE director Lucile Hadzihalilovic (she's married to IRREVERSIBLE director Gaspar Noe, edited his 1998 film I STAND ALONE and co-wrote his 2009 film ENTER THE VOID) is an impenetrable arthouse sci-fi/horror mood piece that feels like an aquatic UNDER THE SKIN and can best be described as what might've transpired if David Cronenberg remade THE LITTLE MERMAID. There's some memorable visuals (this was shot on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands) and a pervasive sense of ominous dread throughout, but it all seems to be an aimless, meandering voyage that doesn't really have anything in mind other than low-key and extremely slow-burning squeamishness. In a remote seaside village that seems to be frozen in time, young Nicolas (Max Brebant) is swimming and sees the body of a drowned boy with a bright red starfish attached to his navel. He tells his mother (Julie-Marie Parmentier), who dives in the area where he was swimming and only finds the starfish. There are no adult males in the village, which is populated only by young boys and their mothers, all plain and unemotional, with white eyebrows and their hair pulled back in tight librarian buns. The boys are fed a gruel-ish concoction of goop and worms and given a strange medicine in between visits to a local "hospital" where they're kept for observation and given ultrasounds by the female doctors and nurses. Nicolas becomes convinced that the village mothers are up to something and spies on them as the writhe naked in star-shaped formations, covered in a slimy film along the shore in the dead of night. Convinced his "mother," who has six suction-cup-like growths on her back, is not his mother, Nicolas is given an extended stay at the hospital, where he befriends strange nurse Stella (Roxane Duran), who decides to show him who--or more accurately, what--he really is. It's a lugubriously slow buildup to very little, but there's some effectively unsettling imagery along the way, with a droning score that really contributes to the escalating sense of unease. But mood and style aren't enough to get the job done with EVOLUTION, which ends up being some kind of asexual nightmare with a predictably ambiguous, hackneyed ending suggesting these creatures are about to walk among us. Some interesting ideas here, but EVOLUTION never comes together. (Unrated, 82 mins, also streaming on Netflix)

In Theaters: A MONSTER CALLS (2016)

A MONSTER CALLS
(US/Spain - 2016)

Directed by J.A. Bayona. Written by Patrick Ness. Cast: Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Liam Neeson, Toby Kebbell, Geraldine Chaplin, James Melville, Ben Moor, Dominic Boyle, Oliver Steer. (PG-13, 108 mins)

Acclaimed Spanish filmmaker and Guillermo del Toro protege J.A. Bayona (THE ORPHANAGE, THE IMPOSSIBLE) crafts his first genuine masterpiece with A MONSTER CALLS, adapted by Patrick Ness from his 2011 novel. The book came from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd, who planned to write it herself but only got as far as outlining the project before succumbing to terminal breast cancer in 2007, a battle that inspired the story. Dowd's editor passed her notes on to Ness, who agreed to write the novel. As a director, Bayona seems more akin to classic-era Spielberg than del Toro (Bayona is currently at work on the next JURASSIC WORLD movie, due in summer 2018), demonstrating a gift for getting natural performances out of young and inexperienced actors. He coaxes a star-making from young Lewis MacDougall (PAN) as Conor O'Malley, a lonely 12-year-old boy in a small British town trying to cope with the slow decline of his terminally ill mother (Felicity Jones). Treatment after treatment doesn't work, and Conor has no one to turn to--his grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) is cold and stand-offish, and his father (Toby Kebbell) split several years ago and has since started a new family in Los Angeles ("You could come for Christmas and meet your sister," he tells Conor, who snaps "Half-sister"). He's bullied on a daily basis at school by Harry (James Melville) and spends his time sketching and drawing, a passion he inherited from his mother, who wanted to go to art school but put it on the backburner when she became pregnant with him. Conor is plagued by recurring nightmares in which he's clinging to his mother as she dangles over a bottomless hole that's opened up, always followed at 12:07 am by an ancient yew tree in the cemetery behind their home coming to life.

Voiced and motion-captured by Liam Neeson, the giant, fire-breathing tree monster is in Conor's imagination but mentors him in dealing with his problems--with the bullies at school, with his grandmother, the resentment he feels toward his father, and his refusal to accept that his mother is near death. The monster tells Conor three stories that have little to do with one another and whose points are initially lost on him. In them, nothing is black and white. People who are presumed evil are actually not and vice versa and there are no clear answers for anything. Conor is, as the tree monster says, "A boy, too old to be a child and too young to be a man." He's faced with thoughts that he can't process. He wants his mother to recover but is angry with her when the last-ditch attempt at treatment doesn't work. He's happy to see his visiting father, but it doesn't take long before he realizes that he's not the priority when Dad declines his request to move with him to L.A. ("There's just no room," Dad says). Things take a devastating turn when Mom is readmitted to the hospital and Conor is forced to stay with Grandma and crosses a line that may irreparably damage any chance at establishing a positive relationship with her. The moral of the tree monster's stories all parallel plot developments in the film, and in doing so, the tree monster is preparing Conor for the inevitable truth he has to face: that his mother is going to die and there's nothing he can do to stop it.

For anyone who's lost a parent or a close family member to a long illness, A MONSTER CALLS may dig up emotions both devastating and cathartic. You'll recognize every thought that runs through Conor's head: his wish that treatment is a success and everything will get back to normal, his anger when that doesn't happen, his wish that the suffering would just end, a sentiment that he misconstrues as wishing she'd die, which causes him extreme guilt ("You don't want her to die," the tree monster reassures, adding "But you want the pain to end. For her and for you"). It's hard to discuss a lot of what happens in A MONSTER CALLS without giving away too much, but it's a powerful and deeply moving film that addresses a difficult subject in a mature and thoughtful way. I wouldn't be at all surprised if psychologists and families find it to be a therapeutic tool in the future for helping children cope with the pending loss of a terminally ill parent. It's a film about loss and grief that handles real life issues in a blunt but sensitive fashion. It isn't afraid to show its characters in a negative light because that's how life happens. There are moments where you'll intensely dislike Conor, no matter how much you empathize with his situation, making A MONSTER CALLS a special effects-heavy fantasy with much going on under the surface--"monster" has numerous meanings here--pulling no punches and unafraid to take risks. It's depressing, heartbreaking, comforting, and hopeful in equal measure, and is thus far my pick for 2016's best film.

In Theaters: RUN ALL NIGHT (2015)

RUN ALL NIGHT
(US - 2015)

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Written by Brad Inglesby. Cast: Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, Joel Kinnaman, Common, Vincent D'Onofrio, Nick Nolte, Bruce McGill, Genesis Rodriguez, Boyd Holbrook, Holt McCallany, Rasha Bukvic, Patricia Kalember, Beau Knapp, Lois Smith, Aubrey Joseph, Daniel Stewart Sherman, James Martinez. (R, 115 mins)

Jimmy Conlan (Liam Neeson) is introduced as a booze-soaked butt of jokes among the other Irish mobsters in the neighborhood bar. He's a nickel-and-dimer, a flunky for Danny Maguire (Boyd Holbrook), the spoiled, coke-snorting, Joffrey-like son of NYC Irish mob kingpin Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). It's Shawn's sense of loyalty and friendship that keep Jimmy around, with the boss regularly reminding the drunk Jimmy of all their glory days and how at the end, they'll cross that final line together. Jimmy was once Shawn's right-hand man and most ruthless enforcer, and now Jimmy can't sleep at night, haunted by the faces and the memories of those he's killed. While Shawn's affection for Jimmy is sincere, it's telling that he keeps him at a distance when it comes to business, instead opting to pawn him off as a gofer for perpetual fuck-up Danny, the kind of insufferable, sociopathic brat who expects to be given everything because of who his father happens to be. A disrespected sad sack reduced to dressing up as Santa for a Maguire Christmas party so Danny will loan him $800 to get his furnace fixed, Jimmy has seen better days.

NEESON!

He gets his obligatory One Last Shot at Redemption when a domino effect of plot conveniences force him to step up and take action to protect his estranged son Michael (Joel Kinnaman), his pregnant wife (Genesis Rodriguez) and the two granddaughters he's never met. Michael, an honest family man who wants nothing to do with his father or his criminal legacy, witnesses childhood friend Danny kill a powerful Albanian heroin dealer (Rasha Bukvic) over a deal that went south. Word gets out that Danny is after Michael, so Shawn sends Jimmy to make sure Michael doesn't talk to the cops. Danny tracks down Michael and is about to kill him when Jimmy walks in and shoots him dead. He immediately informs Shawn what happened ("He was about to kill Michael...I had to do it"), but no matter how justified it was, Shawn has lost his only son and will not rest until Jimmy loses his. Mobsters and corrupt cops conspire to frame Michael for the Albanian's murder, and as the media attention grows, Shawn's inner circle of gangsters, unstoppable freelance hitman Price (Common), and the last honest cop in NYC (Vincent D'Onofrio) close in on Jimmy and Michael, putting them in a position where they must set aside their differences and survive the night...if they don't kill each other first!

NEESON!

A major improvement over January's lackluster TAKEN 3, RUN ALL NIGHT is the busy Neeson's third teaming with director Jaume Collet-Serra (UNKNOWN, NON-STOP). Collet-Serra's key to success with Neeson seems to be that the stories are frequently as ludicrous as something Luc Besson would cook up for TAKEN, but he gives Neeson enough breathing room to flex his acting muscles. Whether he's presenting Neeson as an amnesia victim in UNKNOWN or a paranoid, alcoholic air marshal in NON-STOP, Collet-Serra understands that Neeson is a real actor and works some moderately challenging characterization into the actor's now-standard action-movie badass routine. There's actually a lot of similarities between Jimmy Conlan and Neeson's Ottway in THE GREY, and like THE GREY, Neeson is surrounded by a top-notch supporting cast--there's also Holt McCallany and Bruce McGill as Maguire mob guys, and a one-scene bit by a more-grizzled-than-usual Nick Nolte as Jimmy's older brother--but the most pleasure comes from watching him play off a steely-as-ever Harris. While he can bellow and rage like the best of them, Harris has always been one of those actors who can also speak volumes with just a look, and he does a terrific job of conveying that sense of friendship just with the way he looks at Jimmy with a combination of fond memories for days gone by and pitying sympathy for what Jimmy is today. They're both outstanding in their later scene together, where they have what's essentially their own version of the HEAT diner meet in a swanky restaurant, each vowing to do what they have to do regardless of the respect and love they have for one another.

HARRIS!

RUN ALL NIGHT's strengths lie with Neeson and Harris, and it's too bad they don't have more scenes together. The father-son issues and bickering between Jimmy and Michael are played well enough by Neeson and Kinnaman (THE KILLING, ROBOCOP), but you've seen it all before. The only major misstep with the casting is Common's high-tech hitman seemingly wandering in from the nearest TERMINATOR audition. He doesn't appear until over an hour into the film, but he never quite gels with his surroundings, and we don't learn enough about him for his showdown with Jimmy to have much resonance beyond the visceral thrill of watching Neeson do his Neeson thing. The script by Brad Inglesby (OUT OF THE FURNACE) errs in the way it abruptly makes Common's Price the chief adversary when the emotional impact lies with the broken bond between Jimmy and Shawn. One other major stumble is a badly-edited car chase early on, assembled in the now-standard way of entirely too much CGI augmentation in a quick-cutting blur with frequent close-ups of a grimacing Neeson clutching the wheel, making constipated faces like he's driving a car at high speed through Times Square. Nitpicking asdie, RUN ALL NIGHT is slick and satisfying entertainment for Neeson's base, the kind of undemanding but compelling actioner that you'll happen upon and end up watching several times as it finds its permanent home in constant rotation on the various HBO channels for the next two decades.

In Theaters: TAKEN 3 (2015)

TAKEN 3
(France/US - 2015)

Directed by Olivier Megaton. Written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Cast: Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Dougray Scott, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, David Warshofsky, Don Harvey, Dylan Bruno, Sam Spruell, Andrew Howard, Jonny Weston, Al Sapienza, Wallace Langham, Steve Coulter. (PG-13, 109 mins)

With no one else in his family left to be abducted by evil Albanian human traffickers and their vengeful relatives, retired CIA special ops badass Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) channels his inner Richard Kimble when he returns to his apartment, picks up a knife on the floor and finds the dead body of his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) just as the cops barge in and he looks guilty as hell. A fleeing Mills takes advantage of his extensive knowledge of the layout of every home in the neighborhood, eventually evading his pursuers via a secret door in someone's garage that leads to the L.A. River. Mills goes on a city-wide rampage to prove his innocence--causing millions of dollars of damage in the process--while being doggedly pursued by Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard--er, I mean, Detective Frank Dotzler (Forest Whitaker), who demonstrates his eccentricity and intelligence by constantly twirling a knight chess piece between his fingers and marveling at the wily Mills' ability to evade capture.

NEESON!

TAKEN 3 is the least and hopefully last of this Luc Besson action franchise. Neeson stumbled into a second career as an aging action hero with the surprise success of the first TAKEN back in 2009. That film seems like gritty neo-realism when held up against the events that unfold in TAKEN 3, in which everyone involved is simply going through the motions, starting with Neeson. The actor's seemingly effortless gravitas just fizzles here, and for the first time in his action-star phase, Neeson looks bored and completely checked out. One can't blame him, considering the idiocy of Besson's and Robert Mark Kamen's script and the abysmal direction of Besson protege and returning TAKEN 2 helmer Olivier Megaton, who previously steered another solid action series to its nadir with 2008's TRANSPORTER 3.  It's bad enough that the story is essentially a ripoff of THE FUGITIVE (with one of the guilty parties missing a pinky instead of an arm), but TAKEN 3 is dumb even by Besson standards. There's one sequence where Mills' daughter Kim (31-year-old Maggie Grace, still apparently playing 20 or 21), who jokes about inheriting her father's "OCD gene," is on her way to school and makes her morning stop at a carryout for a peach yogurt drink (always grabbing the fourth drink from the front) only this time, there's a note from her on-the-run dad on the fourth container back saying "Drink this now." It's been drugged with something to make her sick a bit later, but he did so in order to get her to leave her class and head to the restroom to vomit, where he's waiting with an antidote, so he can talk to her. Is there some reason he couldn't just put a note on the container telling her to meet him in the ladies' room near her class?  Why spike the yogurt smoothie and deliberately cause gastrointestinal distress?  What if she didn't make it to the restroom?  It just seems like more work than necessary. I'd say Mills was overthinking it, but there's absolutely no way that "overthinking" and "TAKEN 3" should be mentioned in the same sentence.

NEESON!

The plot is as standard-issue and by-the-numbers as it gets and a better script would've provided some more back-and-forth phone banter, mind games, and grudging respect between Neeson's Mills and Whitaker's Dotzler. Both actors are capable of more than TAKEN 3 allows them to do or cares for them to attempt. Of course Mills is being framed. Of course some stock Russian mobsters--led by ruthless ex-Spetsnaz killing machine Oleg Malankov (Sam Spruell)--are behind it all. And of course it has something to do with Malankov seeking revenge for some shady and collapsed business deal with Lenore's asshole husband Stewart, now played by Janssen's HEMLOCK GROVE co-star Dougray Scott (replacing Xander Berkeley), bland and lifeless here and looking like he still hasn't recovered from losing the role of Wolverine in 2000's X-MEN to second-choice Hugh Jackman after being stuck working on reshoots for the behind-schedule MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II. As dumb and uninspired as TAKEN 3 is (don't miss Mills driving a car down an elevator shaft), it's really Megaton's directing style that's the biggest deal-breaker. There is no scene that Megaton can't chop into nanosecond increments that would give Michael Bay a bout of vertigo. Action sequences are just a blurry smear of colors and quick cuts. Featuring three nausea-inducing car chases that make GETAWAY look like THE SEVEN-UPS, TAKEN 3's action is lost in a headachy haze of CGI vehicle flips and shaky-cam incoherence, much of which seems to be orchestrated around Neeson's stunt double. There are a few shots where you can tell Neeson is involved (the brawl in the carryout, for example), but most of the time, there's some alarmingly Seagal-esque chicanery going on where you see Mills fighting but not his face, as Megaton cuts to a close-up of a grimacing Neeson before cutting back to Mills fighting, as "Neeson" is either shot from behind or his head is out of the frame. On one hand, sure, at 62, Neeson's not a young man anymore, but in his other action movies, he's made a point of doing as much as he could. One can hardly blame him for not caring enough about the quality of TAKEN 3 or rightfully concluding that it wasn't worth risking injury on something so subpar. TAKEN was a surprise, lightning-in-a-bottle blockbuster that became a modern action classic. TAKEN 2 was an unnecessary but stupidly enjoyable victory lap. TAKEN 3 shows the franchise in a downward spiral worthy of the last two DIE HARD movies and is just no fun for anyone, from the actors to the audience. Liam Neeson is the man, and in films like THE GREY and A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES, he brings a "thinking man's asskicker" complexity to his roles, and in something like NON-STOP, he manages to overcome the obstacles and still deliver a strong, convincing performance. But even Neeson can't conceal his TAKEN burnout with his half-hearted clock-punch of a performance here. Perhaps it's time for him to use the very particular set of skills that he's acquired over a long career and move on to something new.