Cold Pursuit
***Warning, may contain spoilers***
Right, as this is a review of Liam Neesons latest movie, I'm going to start off by addressing the 'elephant in the room'. Firstly, I do not condone Neesons actions as documented in the press recently. At all. But this is a review of Neeson as an actor, not anything non film related so onto the review!
As an actor I have always loved Liam Neeson action movies. From the Taken series to The Commuter, to everything else he has done he's been brilliant. I think he is one of, if not the best action movie actor around. So, it was with great excitement, especially after seeing the trailer, that I was looking forward to his latest action movie, Cold Pursuit.
Unfortunately, I was hugely dissapointed. If you've seen the trailer you've actually seen the best bits of the movie, you really have. It may have changed due to age, but in most Liam Neeson action movies you see amazing chases where he leaps from building to building, and awesome fight scenes when he catches up to the bad guys or they catch up to him. The Taken series is the best at this but lots of his movies are like this.
Unfortunately, that doesn't really happen in this movie. At all. It's a similar storyline to all his recent films, at the start, but the way it is executed is terrible. I get that it's supposed to be 'ironic' or 'humorous' but it doesn't work.
Neesons characters son is kidnapped and injected with heroin to make it look like an accidental overdose however Neeson doesn't think it was an accident. His wife leaves him over his obsession to hunt and kill the people responsible.
Sounds great right? Well, it should have been, but quite simply, the kills are way too easy. Neeson punches the relevant guy a couple of times, they tell him the name of the next person to go after, then he shoots them dead and throws their body in a river. That's it. Again and again and again.
Where is the chase? Where is the bad guy fighting back? Where is Neesons character being taken right to the very edge before just surviving and beating the bad guy as usually happens in his action movies?
You don't get any of that, it's just too easy. Neeson finds bad guy, literally one punch he's on the floor, he tells Neeson the next name, Neeson shoots him and dumps his body in the river, and repeat.
It really feels like Neeson is phoning this performance in, he doesn't have to speak much, just do a few punches then pull a trigger. It could have been so much better.
That said, he only had the storyline to work with so you can blame the scriptwriters and the director, who could have adapted the story to make it much more dramatic.
Don't get me wrong, it's not all awful. There are some comedic bits such as when the policeman gets sick at seeing a body and one of the kills, well almost kills at the end involving Neeson and a tree log is pretty epic. It's not completely dire, it just could have been so much better.
In conclusion, unless you're a die hard Liam Neeson fan wait till it comes out on Netflix or Amazon or something. Obviously if you are a massive Liam Neeson fan and have an unlimited card like me so you don't have to pay then fill your boots lol.
Very average movie with a few glimpses of the movie it could have been, 3 stars sadly awarded, if only it could have been more. :(
*This review is all my own work, please don't reproduce without my permission but please visit my advertisers pages as they help keep the blog going thankyou :)
Right, as this is a review of Liam Neesons latest movie, I'm going to start off by addressing the 'elephant in the room'. Firstly, I do not condone Neesons actions as documented in the press recently. At all. But this is a review of Neeson as an actor, not anything non film related so onto the review!
As an actor I have always loved Liam Neeson action movies. From the Taken series to The Commuter, to everything else he has done he's been brilliant. I think he is one of, if not the best action movie actor around. So, it was with great excitement, especially after seeing the trailer, that I was looking forward to his latest action movie, Cold Pursuit.
Unfortunately, I was hugely dissapointed. If you've seen the trailer you've actually seen the best bits of the movie, you really have. It may have changed due to age, but in most Liam Neeson action movies you see amazing chases where he leaps from building to building, and awesome fight scenes when he catches up to the bad guys or they catch up to him. The Taken series is the best at this but lots of his movies are like this.
Unfortunately, that doesn't really happen in this movie. At all. It's a similar storyline to all his recent films, at the start, but the way it is executed is terrible. I get that it's supposed to be 'ironic' or 'humorous' but it doesn't work.
Neesons characters son is kidnapped and injected with heroin to make it look like an accidental overdose however Neeson doesn't think it was an accident. His wife leaves him over his obsession to hunt and kill the people responsible.
Sounds great right? Well, it should have been, but quite simply, the kills are way too easy. Neeson punches the relevant guy a couple of times, they tell him the name of the next person to go after, then he shoots them dead and throws their body in a river. That's it. Again and again and again.
Where is the chase? Where is the bad guy fighting back? Where is Neesons character being taken right to the very edge before just surviving and beating the bad guy as usually happens in his action movies?
You don't get any of that, it's just too easy. Neeson finds bad guy, literally one punch he's on the floor, he tells Neeson the next name, Neeson shoots him and dumps his body in the river, and repeat.
It really feels like Neeson is phoning this performance in, he doesn't have to speak much, just do a few punches then pull a trigger. It could have been so much better.
That said, he only had the storyline to work with so you can blame the scriptwriters and the director, who could have adapted the story to make it much more dramatic.
Don't get me wrong, it's not all awful. There are some comedic bits such as when the policeman gets sick at seeing a body and one of the kills, well almost kills at the end involving Neeson and a tree log is pretty epic. It's not completely dire, it just could have been so much better.
In conclusion, unless you're a die hard Liam Neeson fan wait till it comes out on Netflix or Amazon or something. Obviously if you are a massive Liam Neeson fan and have an unlimited card like me so you don't have to pay then fill your boots lol.
Very average movie with a few glimpses of the movie it could have been, 3 stars sadly awarded, if only it could have been more. :(
*This review is all my own work, please don't reproduce without my permission but please visit my advertisers pages as they help keep the blog going thankyou :)
It may be while Liam wants to do these films his body is saying differently.
ReplyDeleteIt may be time he quits doing these solo male fantasy revenge thrillers and go for the mentoring a young student type of action....like Michael Keaton in "American Assassin".
That is a really good point. What he did in this movie is a bizzare kind of 'halfway house' where he tried to do an action style movie, but, probably due to age his body wouldn't let him do it properly hence a few punches and done which doesn't work. I like the karate kid style tutor idea and I also like when he isn't the lead actor like in the movie Widows as then he doesn't use as much energy as he's only in a small amount of scenes. I think those two options are his future now.
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