65-year
old veteran actor and Irishman Liam Neeson has been defying Hollywood trend for years taking
on the roles of a leading man action-hero in such films as ‘Taken’ (plus its
sequels) and ‘A Walk Among the
Tombstones.’ He did it yet again in his
latest movie ‘The Commuter,’ which marks his fourth collaboration with Spanish
director Jaume Collet-Serra following ‘Unknown’ (2011),
‘Non-Stop’ (2014) and ‘Run All Night’ (2015).
Billed
as a spine-tingling psychological suspense thriller in the grand Alfred Hitchcock tradition, the movie’s poster was even
inspired by that of the Hitchcock masterpiece ‘Vertigo.’ ‘The Commuter’ is the credibility-stretching
(okay, shattering) story of long-time train commuter Michael MacCauley, a
60-year old life insurance salesman in New York who suddenly found himself out
of a job when he got laid off. With a
mortgage to pay off and a son going off to college, he was contemplating his
next move on the train ride home when he was accosted by a mysterious woman
(Vera Farmiga) who offered him an outrageous and head-scratching proposition:
$100,000.00 can be his if he accomplishes the “simple” task of locating and
pointing out another commuter on the train who has something he/she shouldn’t
have.
I
admit I was intrigued by the film’s mysterious and juicy premise in the
beginning, but as the story unfolds and each development in the film proved to
be more unbelievable than the last, my suspension of disbelief was stretched
beyond even its substantial limits and the film lost me completely. I really should have known better, since this
had happened before with two of the above-mentioned films, ‘Unknown’ and ‘Non-Stop,’
so ultimately I only have myself to blame.
Grade: C
No comments:
Post a Comment