A
Walk
Among
The Tombstones
You
better watch out,
because when Liam Neeson shows up in a movie, something is going to be
taken!
When he plays an air marshal, the plane gets taken.
When he plays a father, the daughter gets taken.
If he played a dude who works at the doughnut shop, a doughnut would be
taken (probably by me).
In this one, set in 1999, Neeson plays former police officer turned
unlicensed private detective, Matt Scudder. A recovering alcoholic with
a dark secret about why he left the force, Matt attends his meetings
regularly and tries to make it through each day, but the next few are
going to be tougher than the rest.
One of his AA buddies, Howie (Eric Nelsen), has been sent to hire Matt
because Howie’s brother, Kenny (Dan Stevens), is a big time
drug trafficker who wants revenge after his wife has been TAKEN!!!!
Kenny wants the men who kidnapped and killed her, even though he paid
the ransom. Our tarnished, tragic hero (haunted by that secret) really
wants out of this job, but Matt starts digging around and finds
something quite nefarious is going on.
Will Matt capture the kidnappers before they strike again?
Writer/director Scott Frank (based on the novel by Lawrence Block) does
a wonderful job making A Walk
Among The Tombstones a movie all
about the atmosphere, and duplicating all of those Taken scenes
Neeson
has become known for these days. Then, it kind of goes off the rails.
Frank gets to start with a great character and mystery that both draw
in the audience. Matt is complicated in all of the right ways and finds
too many moments to show his basic decency (we kind of get it after a
while), but, ultimately, he is driven by the proper motives when he
starts to realize how heinous these kidnappers are and what they are
doing. Yes, it's his chance at redemption.
At this point, Neeson could perform this character in his sleep, but
delivers all of the requisite anger, complete with some menacing back
and forth with our villains. I can’t think of an actor who is
better at portraying morally righteous annoyance better than Neeson, so
he might as well keep on keeping on.
However, A Walk Among The
Tombstones becomes too crowded.
Frank gives Matt too many scenes with a young character who is
pointless and feels inserted for the primary reason of helping advance
a sticky plot point later in the movie.
Then, we get a few scenes too many, and the ending becomes too artsy.
Frank tries to weave together some basic principals Matt holds dear
with his actions during the first climax (that’s right, we
get multiple climaxes in this movie), which feels overdone, but I could
have lived with it if this was the real ending of the movie.
No, we get a few more twists and turns that aren’t needed and
our bad guys become too comical.
A Walk Among
The Tombstones is good enough.
A
Walk Among The Tombstones is rated R for
strong violence, disturbing images, language and brief nudity.
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