REVIEW: The Ice Road

A loose remake of The Wages of Fear, The Ice Road reconceptualizes George Clouzot’s seminal 1953 thriller as a Liam Neeson vehicle and transports the action to the icy wastes way, way north of the equator.

When a methane explosion at a diamond mine leaves miners, including the dependable Holt McCallany, trapped and rapidly running out of air.…

REVIEW: Honest Thief


Action thrillers starring Liam Neeson are a mixed bag at the best of times, but Honest Thief may be the first I’ve seen that doesn’t even have a decent elevator pitch.

There’s been “Liam Neeson rescues his daughter” (AKA Taken, the granddaddy of the whole “Liam Neeson does stuff” genre), “Liam Neeson protects his son” (Run All Night), “Liam Neeson on a plane” (Non-Stop), “Liam Neeson on a train” (The Commuter), even “Liam Neeson on a snowplow while avenging his son’s death (Cold Pursuit).…

2019 film in review – February (in progress)

Cold Pursuit

Released: February 22nd

Director: Hans Petter Moland

Writer: Frank Baldwin (based on Kim Fupz Aakeson’s In Order Of Disappearance)

Cast: Liam Neeson, Laura Dern, Tom Bateman, Emmy Rossum, Dominic Lombardozzi, Domenick Forsythe, John Doman, Tom Jackson

Cert: 15

Duration: 118 minutes

It’s been five years since icy black Norwegian comedy In Order Of Disappearance blew through cinemas.…

REVIEWS: Widows (London Film Festival 2018 – Day 1)

A bedroom embrace is wrenched away and instantly replaced with the rear compartment of a getaway van, one door wrenched off its hinge and sparking on the asphalt, as a lover’s playful snarl becomes the shriek of a bullet, ricocheting around the exposed interior.…

REVIEW: The Commuter

In his fourth collaboration with director Jaime Collet-Serra (Unknown, Run All Night), Oscar-nominated-actor-turned-punchy-man Liam Neeson stars as Michael Macaulay, insurance salesman.

Fired from his job after ten years, and already old enough to qualify for a senior rail pass, Michael is on his regular commute home, trying to figure out how to tell his family, when he’s approached by a mysterious woman (Vera Farmiga).…

Silence brings Scorsese’s obsession with theology & suffering near miraculously to the surface

What is the worst thing you could do to yourself, and under what circumstance might such a thing be not only permitted but necessary?

This, in general terms, is the central question of Silence, a long-term passion project by Martin Scorsese and the latest of his works to tackle with the burden of religious conviction.…

LFF Day 2: A Monster Calls & The Handmaiden

Fantastical trauma counseling and opulent Gothic fetishism on London Film Festival Day 2.

 

The Orphanage‘s J.A. Bayona began his career as an acolyte of Guillermo Del Toro and in A Monster Calls he finds his own Pan’s Labyrinth but one where the monsters make house calls.

A Walk Among the Tombstones makes for a forgettable ramble

 

What’s become of Liam Neeson?

The aquiline Northern Irishman, best known for the likes Schindler’s List, Michael Collins, and Kinsey, became an unlikely action hero when, at the age of fifty-six, he starred in the Luc Besson-produced Taken.…

Everything is awesome with The Lego Movie

 

Brand movies are notoriously not good.

Generally reliant on a calculated blend of nostalgia and big-budget cheesiness, they are essentially vampires of good will, and however much money they do make, it’s never quite enough.

Who, for instance, authorized a $200 million adaptation of Battleship, a children’s guessing game?…