Short of Charles Bronson, Liam Neeson may be the most unlucky bastard in the history of Hollywood. No matter what this man is doing, its almost inevitable that his family will be kidnapped and he will have to fuck shit up. That is a really stressful way to go through life. The Commuter is the latest such tale and the fourth directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (who previously directed Neeson in Run All Night, Non-Stop and Unknown….in fact, I think his entire career has consisted of Liam Neeson action movies and horror movies, which is an interesting career). Fortunately, though, The Commuter is one of the better entries in Liam Neeson’s catalog of give-me-back-my-family films. While it isn’t particularly memorable, it’s a solid film that is really more of a thriller than an action film (except in the last act, but I’ll get to that).
Neeson plays an ex-cop (of course) that was just fired from his job as an insurance salesman. Since the character is played by Liam Neeson, that is naturally not the worst part of his day. He boards his regular train and is approached by a mysterious woman (played by Vera Farmiga) who explains that he will receive $100,000 if he identifies the person on the train that doesn’t belong there. Since all ex-cops are both detectives and ninjas and he needs tuition money for his son, he accepts the offer. Naturally, his family is also kidnapped along the way (this is so routine for this kind of movie that the film doesn’t even bother to show it happen). The rest of the film plays out as he tries to identify the mystery person and unravel the mystery of what the fuck is going on.
For the most part, the film is more of a mystery/thriller than an action film and I mean that as a compliment. It does quite a good job portraying how Neeson goes about identifying the mystery person and the reveal is actually quite clever. For the sake of a convenient and recent example, I think that the mystery-on-a-train scenario is handled a bit better here than in the new version of Murder on the Orient Express. It’s difficult to discuss in any greater detail without spoiling it, but the core detective story here is surprisingly good.
The problem is that the film tries to be too clever for its own good. While the initial reveal of the mystery person is well done, the movie goes on for quite a long time after that. With about 20 minutes left, I lost track of the number of plot twists and the film just becomes increasingly convoluted and cliched. Some of the later plot twists are fairly obvious (in any mystery film, a character that is introduced early on for no particular reason is probably involved in some way) and I thought that they were just red herrings until the film needed them somewhere around plot twist #10. Also, the tone of the film drastically shifts in the last half hour and it becomes more of a traditional action film. I’m willing to bet that the original script didn’t contain most of the late-film action setpieces, but they were added as either a studio note or to take advantage of the casting of Neeson. None of this ruins the film, but the first 60 minutes are certainly better than the last 30.
On a technical level, the film is fine but unremarkable. If you have seen another Liam Neeson action movie, its very similar. I have always suspected that the Hallmark channel has a warehouse somewhere where a crew is forced to make Christmas movies 24/7 for the entire year. Right down the street from that, there is another warehouse that is eternally filming Liam Neeson action movies. In both cases, they all look the same. The cast is really good, though. Liam Neeson could play this role in his sleep at this point, but he is still a damn entertaining and charismatic guy. Plus, the dude trained both Obi Wan Kenobi and Batman, thus officially making him the biggest badass in the history of film. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are both really good and its kind of odd to see them together in a movie that isn’t The Conjuring. But the best point for me is an appearance by Sam Neil, who is one of my favorite actors and he doesn’t seem to get much work these days (he’s best known as Dr. Grant in Jurassic Park).
If you like Liam Neeson action movies, then you should check this out. It’s not as good as Taken but its better than the Taken sequels, if that helps put it into perspective. If you like mysteries/thrillers, then you will probably also like this if you can tolerate a last act that screams of studio interference. All in all, nothing remarkable but damn solid for a mid-winter action movie.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Commuter_(film)#/media/File:The_Commuter_film_poster.jpg
