RUN ALL NIGHT -The Review

It would appear that Liam Neeson is continuing his Charles Bronson-esque revenge spree with RUN ALL NIGHT. After countless of films that are all marketed in the same style as TAKEN and its sequels, you might be surprised to hear that this new genre exercise is more than just a run and gun thriller. In fact, thanks to a script that lends the occasionally exhaustive action some deeper meaning, RUN ALL NIGHT is one of the best films Liam Neeson has done in years. Now if only Jaume Collet-Serra was as interested in highlighting the drama as much as all the running around, we might have more than just a “good” action marathon.

Neeson plays former hitman and now current alcoholic Jimmy Conlon. Years ago he became notorious in the New York crime scene for his skills of disposing targets. His former boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris) has also now moved on in an attempt to escape his past. Unfortunately neither of their sons has forgotten the lives the two men once led. Conlon’s son Mike (Joel Kinnaman) still carries resentment for his father’s actions, while Maguire’s son Danny (Boyd Holbrook) thinks he can follow in his father’s footsteps by making shady drug deals with the Albanians. One violent evening that leads to Jimmy killing his old boss’s son takes an even more violent turn once Jimmy and Mike have to go on the run to escape Shawn’s thugs as well as a New York City police department led by a vengeful detective (Vincent D’Onofrio).

The film spends very little time before getting into the action. Once it starts there’s not a brake pedal in site. Car chases through NYC streets lead to foot chases through subway platforms, to an all out messy brawl in a seedy public bathroom. At times you get the feeling the editing is choppy in order to hide Neeson’s lack of agility and old age. Other times the action really lights up the screen. A chase later on through a low-income housing complex is particularly well done even if it is a smidge fantastical. When a hired assassin played by Common gets half his face practically melted off and yet continues to fight, you kind of have to grin and roll with the punches.

Like I previously alluded to, for a “Liam Neeson shoot-em-up” there’s a lot more going on in between the consecutive action sequences. The script by Brad Ingelsby isn’t overly deep but provides a proper set-up for the story of fathers and sons and the sins of their past. Ingelsby previously penned the script for OUT OF THE FURNACE – another film about tough guys and the tough decisions they make – he has a knack for cracking through a character’s hard outer shell and digging into their emotional core. What could’ve been just stereotypical rough and tough guys actually feel like vulnerable characters filled with regret and pain. Ed Harris is fantastic as an aging criminal who carries a heavy heart and Liam Neeson looks especially tired and regretful, even when he’s not hitting the bottle hard. You have two sons, one who is trying to father follow their father’s footsteps while the other is trying to abandon everything related to his father. The rocky tension between Neeson and Kinnaman actually works and adds a level of uncertainty to how things will end up.

Collet-Sera sets up a few intimate scenes in cramped quarters using close-ups to highlight the immediacy of the dialogue. Early on there’s a moment between Harris and Neeson upstairs in a darkened room that delves into their past while giving the audience a bit of foreshadowing. Later on there’s a tender moment between Neeson and Kinnaman in a car as they discuss the family that the son has tried to distance from his father. If only Collet-Sera would let some of these scenes breathe just a little longer they might have made more of an impact. Instead, in no time we are off to the next explosion or headshot without letting these scenes build enough to make much of an impact.

Some of his stylistic choices also left me confused. An attempt to link different parts of the city through intense zoom-outs and zoom-ins to other locations felt gimmicky. These dynamic cross-fades or transitions felt like something out of a modern videogame than a hard-boiled 70’s action film that it strives to be the majority of the time. The emphasis on darkened rooms and shadows is equally as distracting. I understand that the film takes place at night, but throwing the idea of lighting design out the window in favor of “gritty” darkness does nothing but take away from the intensity and performances of the scene.

RUN ALL NIGHT is indeed a non-stop (the title of the director’s previous Neeson entry) rush that lives up to the title. Fans of genre cinema will appreciate this R-rated Neeson flick complete with a burning building, a frenetic car chase, and a bloody shoot-out in a bar set to The Pogues “Fairytale of New York.” Of course, this is another example of Liam Neeson killing dangerous evildoers that are probably half his age in order to save a loved one from peril, but goddamnit if he doesn’t do so with such conviction. While most of his films lately seem to be about how many baddies he can disperse in 90 minutes time, at least here we have some deeper issues at play not unlike what we saw him cope with in the underrated THE GREY. There’s nothing necessarily new to see in RUN ALL NIGHT, but at least there’s some passion to the performances and script – even if the director and producers are more interested in Neeson simply playing his strong and silent hero role.

Overall rating: 3 out of 5

RUN ALL NIGHT opens in theaters everywhere March 13, 2015