Blacklight

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: F

               It’s that time of year again. It’s the anniversary of whatever-the-fuck Liam Neeson movie was released in winter last year (I think it was either The Marksman or Honest Thief, but I get my Neeson years mixed up), so it’s time for another shitty action movie that’s so generic that even Neeson himself is only vaguely aware that it exists. In the unfortunate shitshow that has become the later stages of Neeson’s career, Blacklight is notable only in that it represents a new low for the legendary actor that once trained both Batman and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Blacklight is a cinematic black hole with nary a trace of creativity, or even basic effort, to be found within its boundaries.

               Neeson stars as Travis Block, a government agent/enforcer with a shadowy past that just wants to put his old life behind him and spend more time with his family. You might note that the preceding sentence is also applicable to 90% of the movies that Neeson has made in the last decade. This time around, he works for the Director of the FBI and unravels a conspiracy involving the FBI assassinating a young politician and….alright, I have a confession to make. I saw Blacklight on Wednesday and, by the time that I started writing this on Friday, I had completely forgotten the plot of the movie. That’s how memorable it is; my brain unceremoniously threw it into the trash within 48 hours. But, I thought, that’s no problem because my trusty friends at Wikipedia will have a plot summary that will jog my memory. So I went to Wikipedia and was met with a plot summary that includes passages like this:

               “Travis Block but have I’ll thinking about or shame that’s disappointing it what a seems or rather hoping for a more dramatic conclusion, Travis Block involving my deadly gun like Amanda crouches over Dusty’s finish line. Gabriel meets Travis conspiracy I’ll always taking or beating have it could be a trick, Travis Block let’s kill first not a trick but it appearance that give it would seems like crushed without growing like everyday was killing Dusty Crane.”

               What the fuck does that mean?!? Did James Joyce rise from the grave to write a summary of a Liam Neeson movie? Not even Wikiepedia stayed sober for this. Alright, well the FBI Director is the bad guy and he sends goons after Neeson and there is a reporter involved for some reason. I don’t know, that’s all I got. Trying to remember the plot of Blacklight is a good simulation of waking up in the morning after getting blackout drunk and trying to piece together what happened the night before. Drink in relative moderation, kids. That’s somehow the message here.

               The lack of effort here is just startling. I don’t expect much from these movies, but c’mon guys, this is a nationwide theatrical release. It wasn’t dumped to some streaming service for people to click on with an enthusiastic “meh, alright” and then turn it off after ten minutes. I was stuck in a theater watching this. There is not one scene, character, line or single, solitary moment that isn’t ripped directly from a dozen other Neeson action movies. There isn’t a single performance that isn’t given with the self-awareness that these are stock characters and no effort is given to do anything interesting with what the script has to offer. The entire film has a bland grey look to it and every scene is edited with the standard shot-reverse shot sequencing. There is barely even any action in this action movie, except for a shootout at the end that could have been replaced with stock footage from a hundred episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger (minus the fun cheesiness of Walker). There is not one spark of passion or creativity, not one moment when it felt like anyone gave the smallest of shits while making this movie.

               The movie does seem to want to have a political message, but it is so poorly written that I can’t quite tell if it is written by a left-wing idiot or a right-wing idiot. The assassinated politician is clearly meant to be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as she is a young, hot female politician and we are introduced to her as she gives a speech to adoring fans and reminds them how oppressed they are and how she can help with vague platitudes. The bad guys are all stuffy, conservative white males that just don’t want any of that liberal idealism to threaten their oppressive regime. Is this a satire of AOC or a satire of people that oppose her? Or both? Or neither? Both sides are written with the depth of characterization that one expects to find in a social media argument between warring factions of trolls, so I’m really not sure. Perhaps Blacklight is actually a brilliant social commentary and I’m just not smart enough to get it. Or it could just be a shitty, poorly written action film. This could require decades of cultural reevaluation to determine with certainty.

               Liam Neeson deserves better than this. The man that nearly won an Oscar for Schindler’s List should not be relegated to repeatedly making this sort of crap in the later stages of his career. While a couple of his action films from the last decade are worth checking out (notably the grim A Walk Among the Tombstones and the darkly-comedic Cold Pursuit), Blacklight represents a new career low for a truly great actor. Can things go even lower? Check back at this time next year when I review whatever piece of crap Neeson has in store for us in 2023.

Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklight_(film)#/media/File:Blacklight_(film).jpg