Add this to your list of holiday films coming out in December – specifically December 13th, 2024 .
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and written by T.J. Fixman (the Ratchet & Clank video games) & Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049), CARRY-ON follows a young TSA agent as he fights to outsmart a mysterious traveler who blackmails him into letting a dangerous package slip onto a Christmas Eve flight.
CARRY-ON director Jaume Collet-Serra specializes in this kind of one-location thriller; he previously directed Non-Stop and The Commuter.
The CARRY-ON cast had help keeping the film’s airport dynamic realistic: a pair of bona fide TSA agents. “We had two amazing LAX TSA advisors on this movie who gave us so much great information on anything we needed,” Collet-Serra told Netflix. “They put our actors through proper TSA training before we shot the movie, and they were on set to advise us if anything didn’t look realistic.”
The Netflix movie began production in October 2022.
For Collet-Serra, Egerton and Bateman were a match made in heaven. “We all wanted this to feel incredibly realistic, like the events of this movie could happen to any of us on any given day at any airport, and Jason and Taron delivered brilliant performances that helped ground our movie and make it feel real,” Collet-Serra tells Tudum.
Dwayne Johnson flew in as DC Super Hero BLACK ADAM during Warner Bros. Pictures theatrical panel at Saturday’s Comic Con panel. This guy know how to make an entrance!
“Hall H, you have been warned. The DC universe will never be the same again,” boomed Johnson.
Johnson tackled an age-old question: who would win in a fight, Black Adam or Superman? Earlier in the week, rumors circulated that Man of Steel actor Henry Cavill might show up or send a video message for the panel, but that didn’t come to fruition.
Said the actor of a matchup between the DC characters: “Pound for pound, they are pretty close. I guess it probably all depends on who is playing Superman. I will just say that.”
Finally, Johnson left the 6,500 Hall H attendees with a gift. Each would receive a free ticket to an IMAX screening of Black Adam. It turns out a post card they received upon entrance was actually a ticket.
“To be here at Comic-Con, Hall H, representing a DC hero, an anti-hero, is a dream come true,” Johnson told the room. “When I started 20 years ago, many moons ago, I would bring movies here and hope people would love it.”
From New Line Cinema, Dwayne Johnson stars in the action adventure “Black Adam.” The first-ever feature film to explore the story of the DC Super Hero comes to the big screen under the direction of Jaume Collet-Serra (“Jungle Cruise”).
Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the ancient gods—and imprisoned just as quickly—Black Adam (Johnson) is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.
Johnson stars alongside Aldis Hodge (“City on a Hill,” “One Night in Miami”) as Hawkman, Noah Centineo (“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”) as Atom Smasher, Sarah Shahi (“Sex/Life,” “Rush Hour 3”), Marwan Kenzari (“Murder on the Orient Express,” “The Mummy”), Quintessa Swindell (“Voyagers,” “Trinkets”) as Cyclone, Mo Amer (“Mo,” “Ramy”), Bodhi Sabongui (“A Million Little Things”), and Pierce Brosnan (the “Mamma Mia!” and James Bond franchises) as Dr. Fate.
Collet-Serra directed from a screenplay written by Adam Sztykiel and Rory Haines & Sohrab Noshirvani, based on characters from DC, based on characters created by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck. The film’s producers are Beau Flynn, Dwayne Johnson, Hiram Garcia and Dany Garcia, with Walter Hamada, Adam Schlagman, Richard Brener, Dave Neustadter, Chris Pan, Eric McLeod, Geoff Johns and Scott Sheldon executive producing.
The director’s behind-the-scenes creative team includes Oscar-nominated director of photography Lawrence Sher (“Joker”), production designer Tom Meyer (“Real Steel”), editors Mike Sale (“Red Notice,” “Skyscraper”) and John Lee (“Anyone Home?”), costume designers Kurt and Bart (“Deadpool 2,” “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 & 2”), Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer (“Life of Pi,” “Wonder Woman”), and composer Lorne Balfe (“Black Widow”).
New Line Cinema Presents a Seven Bucks/Flynn Co. Production, A Jaume Collet-Serra Film, “Black Adam,” smashing into theaters and IMAX internationally beginning 19 October 2022, in North America on October 21, 2022. It will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.
From New Line Cinema, Dwayne Johnson stars in the action adventure.
The first-ever feature film to explore the story of the DC Super Hero comes to the big screen under the direction of Jaume Collet-Serra (“Jungle Cruise”). Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the ancient gods—and imprisoned just as quickly—Black Adam (Johnson) is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.
Johnson stars alongside Aldis Hodge (“City on a Hill,” “One Night in Miami”) as Hawkman, Noah Centineo (“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”) as Atom Smasher, Sarah Shahi (“Sex/Life,” “Rush Hour 3”) as Adrianna, Marwan Kenzari (“Murder on the Orient Express,” “The Mummy”) as Ishmael, Quintessa Swindell (“Voyagers,” “Trinkets”) as Cyclone, Bodhi Sabongui (“A Million Little Things”) as Amon, and Pierce Brosnan (the “Mamma Mia!” and James Bond franchises) as Dr. Fate.
The film marks the first big-screen, live-action appearance of the Justice Society of America, the legendary DC superhero team. Previously fans of the CW show “Smallville” saw the team in the episode “Absolute Justice”. Clark Kent/Superman met up with JSA members Doctor Fate, Stargirl and Hawkman.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Jaume Collet-Serra says of Hawkman.
Hodge’s Hawkman is one of the JSA’s high-flying heroes. The golden-winged warrior has long been a DC staple, and he’s popped up before in live-action TV series like Smallville and the Arrowverse shows. But Hodge’s version is the first to make it to live-action film, and Collet-Serra says he wanted to craft a Hawkman who felt both impossibly strong and agile. “He’s not just a man with wings,” the director explains. “He’s like a fighting beast.”
Collet-Serra adds that he and the costume design team worked to build an avian look that felt new but still honored the character’s decades-long history, and Hodge trained for months to prepare for the extensive wirework required to soar through the air.
Collet-Serra directed from a screenplay by Adam Sztykiel and Rory Haines & Sohrab Noshirvani, screen story by Adam Sztykiel and Rory Haines & Sohrab Noshirvani, based on characters from DC. Black Adam was created by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck. The film’s producers were Beau Flynn, Dwayne Johnson, Hiram Garcia and Dany Garcia, with Richard Brener, Walter Hamada, Dave Neustadter, Chris Pan, Eric McLeod, Geoff Johns and Scott Sheldon.
“Black Adam” smashes into theaters and IMAX internationally beginning 19 October 2022 and in North America on October 21, 2022. It will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.
I’m not sure that Liam Neeson’s former police officer turned life insurance salesman remembers that you’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Even though on the surface Neeson is playing hero, his character is aggressively stalking multiple passengers on a train before playing judge, jury, and executioner for one unlucky passenger. It’s interesting that this is what a hero is made to look like in 2018.
Much like his previous film THE SHALLOWS, Jaume Collet-Serra centers THE COMMUTER around an ordinary man who is forced into an extraordinary situation. The main difference though is the setting. The wide-open expanse of the ocean in his previous film is replaced by the claustrophobic setting of a Commuter train. What’s ironic is that the tension and intensity of the situation in THE SHALLOWS is far more effective than what he captures on this short train ride.
The plot centers around Neeson being given an ultimatum by an unknown woman (Vera Farmiga) to kill a stranger on a train with a mysterious package in exchange for a large chunk of change. After the film opens with the reasons for why he would agree to this silly plan, you’re meant to go along for the ride despite what his police background would lead you to believe. With that device set in motion, you expect there to be a certain level of Agatha Christie character questioning at play. Unfortunately, Collet-Serra focuses his sights solely on his born-again hero instead of diving into the other players in this game. The sense of intrigue is never there and becomes even less so as the film moves towards the anticlimactic big reveal. What could have been a fun whodunnit quickly devolves into Neeson just running up and down the train (over and over again) playing hero.
Leave it to Neeson to play a once-saluted hero that is now struggling to make ends meet. If that isn’t an accurate reflection of the actor’s career than I don’t know what is. He has always excelled at breathing life into genre tropes (see Sam Raimi’s DARKMAN as an earlier example). Yet, THE COMMUTER shows Neeson at the end of his line. He seems tired, and more so, shows disinterest in the material and the type of “lone gunman” archetype that has defined his career in the past 10 years. As he has not so subtlety hinted at in recent interviews promoting the film, he’s well aware that he’s getting “too old for this shit.” Oddly enough, the one bright spot in the film relies on Neeson showing his age and getting his ass handed to him by a young attacker in a gritty long-take action sequence.
The lazy script and even lazier performances are punctuated with some cheap CGI and camera effects – a reverse zoom-in going back through the train only cheapens the drama. Even amid the ridiculous train explosions and Neeson dangling from the side of a train car, Collet-Serra seems to be making the point that we still need our old heroes. This is the fourth collaboration between the director and the actor, and the fact that he hasn’t given up on the 65 yr old actor is a telling sign. Perhaps it’s a level of nostalgia for the “good ole” days of John Wayne still standing tall despite his age or maybe it’s that Collet-Serra thinks that now more than ever we need to be making a statement about what true heroism looks like in 2018. Either way, he seems to be making some sort of point by sticking with his man and having him deliver lines like, “From the American middle class: F-ck you!” when addressing a young wealthy investment broker. While audiences might be left with only a few remaining films in Neeson’s aging-hero action catalog (there’s a handful in pre-production according to IMDB), THE COMMUTER won’t be a stop on his career path that many will want to revisit.
Overall score: 2 out of 5
THE COMMUTER opens in theaters everywhere on January 12th
Economic and immersive, THE SHALLOWS is an 87-minute tale of one woman trying, choice by choice, to keep the odds going in her favor. 200 yards from shore, surfer Nancy (Blake Lively) is bitten, then trapped, by a great white shark. She’s at first perched on a dead whale, then a rock, then a rusty, anchored buoy. Suffering a nasty wound on her leg, she tries screaming for help from the occasional passersby, but they soon become shark snacks. Director Jaume Collet-Serra gets exposition out of the way quickly through a series of brief phone calls that show Nancy has found the Mexican beach her late mother visited while pregnant with her. She’s dropped out of med school and is close to her father and younger sister. We learn this efficiently in the first few minutes, then its straight to the beach for a bit of surfing followed by that tense hour of showdown.
The plot, which takes place over about a 36-hour period, is single-minded (like a shark!), the cast minimal and the pace energetic, but THE SHALLOWS delivers and is a real pleasure to experience. Though the concept and some of the shocks are familiar, Collet-Serra manages to craft some nail-biting set pieces while locking us into his hero’s predicament. In one particularly taut scene, a chubby Mexican passed out on the beach responds to Nancy’s screams by snatching her purse and foolishly heading out to steal her surfboard. Blake Lively is excellent, holding the screen using mostly her emotional reactions and strong physical presence (not to mention her fine bikinied bod) as she rises to the challenge of survival in the tightest of circumstances. There is some dialog between Nancy and an injured bird she nicknames ‘Steven Seagull’ that cleverly illustrates what’s going on in her mind, similar to the relationship between Tom Hanks and ‘Wilson’ in CASTAWAY. Cinematographer Flavio Martinez Labiano provides gorgeous imagery, especially shots captured from beneath the ocean’s surface. A scene with Nancy and the shark both navigating through a school of deadly glowing jellyfish has a ghostly beauty.
THE SHALLOWS hardly reinvents the wheel, but it’s an unfussy genre thriller that does its job well. The tropes of a single character’s survival (or otherwise) may be familiar from CUJO or GRAVITY or even 127 HOURS, but when directed as thrillingly as THE SHALLOWS, the tropes are easy to swallow.
Its Blake Lively VS killer sharks in the latest trailer for THE SHALLOWS.
Looks fun. We’re in!
In the taut thriller THE SHALLOWS, when Nancy (Blake Lively) is surfing on a secluded beach, she finds herself on the feeding ground of a great white shark. Though she is stranded only 200 yards from shore, survival proves to be the ultimate test of wills, requiring all of Nancy’s ingenuity, resourcefulness, and fortitude.
JAWS, DEEP BLUE SEA, SHARKNADO, THE REEF and OPEN WATER. Just a sampling of the shark films that have been terrorizing audiences right out of the ocean and into a frenzied state for decades. Every year, the Discovery Channel hosts a week where fans can get their fill of fins, chum and the beautiful beasties. “Shark Week” has become mandatory watching every summer for shark enthusiasts.
Coming to cinemas on June 24, 2016 is the latest shark movie, THE SHALLOWS. Here’s a look at the teaser and poster for the film that’s being called, “JAWS for a new generation.”
In the taut thriller THE SHALLOWS, Nancy (Blake Lively) is surfing alone on a secluded beach when she is attacked by a great white shark and stranded just a short distance from shore. Though she is only 200 yards from her survival, getting there proves the ultimate contest of wills.
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (UNKNOWN, ORPHAN, 2009’s HOUSE OF WAX), the score is from composer Marco Beltrami.
Opening in theaters on Friday, March 13th is RUN ALL NIGHT. The action thriller stars Oscar nominees Liam Neeson and Ed Harris and is directed of Jaume Collet-Serra (NON-STOP).
Brooklyn mobster and prolific hit man Jimmy Conlon (Neeson), once known as The Gravedigger, has seen better days. Longtime best friend of mob boss Shawn Maguire (Harris), Jimmy, now 55, is haunted by the sins of his past—as well as a dogged police detective (Vincent D’Onofrio) who’s been one step behind Jimmy for 30 years. Lately, it seems Jimmy’s only solace can be found at the bottom of a whiskey glass.
But when Jimmy’s estranged son, Mike (Joel Kinnaman), becomes a target, Jimmy must make a choice between the crime family he chose and the real family he abandoned long ago. With Mike on the run, Jimmy’s only penance for his past mistakes may be to keep his son from the same fate Jimmy is certain he’ll face himself…at the wrong end of a gun. Now, with nowhere safe to turn, Jimmy just has one night to figure out exactly where his loyalties lie and to see if he can finally make things right.
RUN ALL NIGHT also stars Nick Nolte, Bruce McGill, Genesis Rodriguez and Oscar winner Common.
The film’s score is from Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum producer and composer Junkie XL (Tom Holkenborg).
He previously scored 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE and his additional works include Robert Luketic’s PARANOIA and the young adult film DIVERGENT, based on Veronica’s Roth’s successful trilogy.
The foundation for this new career path was laid in his native Holland, where he created multiple film scores. Earlier in his composing career, Junkie XL also provided music for such films as “Bandslam,” “DOA: Dead or Alive,” “The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury,” “The Animatrix” and “Resident Evil.”
He later continued to grow under mentorships with celebrated composers like Harry Gregson-Williams, on the films DOMINO and KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, and Klaus Badelt on CATWOMAN. From there, Junkie XL formed a highly successful association with Hans Zimmer. They have collaborated on films including the 2013 blockbuster MAN OF STEEL, Christopher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, the MADAGASCAR films, MEGAMIND and INCEPTION.
Junkie XL’s music accompanies the night’s journey with Jimmy and Shawn facing the ultimate sacrifice for their sons.
“I’ve always had a soft spot for the tapestry of family conflict in movies, especially if you can wrap it up in a little bit of action, and I believe this movie has all of that,” says Liam Neeson.
Collet-Serra notes, “I think if audiences come for the action, they’ll get hooked in by the emotion, and they’ll enjoy quite a ride.”
In my recent interview with the composer,Junkie XL and I discussed his latest score as well as his upcoming music for some of the most anticipated films in 2015 and 2016.
Warning: Movie plot SPOILERS ahead.
WAMG: Where’d the name Junkie XL come from?
Junkie XL: From my teens, because I was spending too much time listening to music, playing drums or on the guitar. The XL I added later which stands for Expanding Limits.
WAMG: I was wondering how one goes from Tom to Junkie XL.
Junkie XL: You don’t get born a Junkie, you become a Junkie.
WAMG: Director Jaume Collet-Serra said, “It was very important that with a movie called ‘Run All Night,’ we don’t just run from Brooklyn to Queens. You want to run through all of New York. We made a big effort to go into Manhattan several times, as well as Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. We really shot almost everywhere.”
Audiences haven’t seen an action movie like RUN ALL NIGHT in some time. Your score doesn’t overpower the chase scenes.
Junkie XL: When I saw the movie the first time, I thought the more interesting part to tell was not necessarily the action but the story of two dads having a troubled relationship and the two sons. When I started writing the music for the movie, they were actually very emotional themes. The movie opens with that, the movie ends with it – ultimately you need some big action music every now and then. When you have 15 helicopters over a building with a 150 FBI agents looking for two guys, you really can’t score that with a piano and a flute.
There were a lot of moments where I basically advised the director not to use music at all. The chase scene through New York City between the cop car and Liam Neeson, I said let’s basically go back to some really cool chase scenes that we have in the 70’s with just the sounds of bullets like in THE FRENCH CONNECTION – let’s not use music at all.
Another scene where Liam Neeson chases Ed Harris through the train tracks. It was another spot that I wanted to go scoreless and only go with some cool sound effects. Have the music start once Harris’s character is killed.
I think it’s an interesting movie too like you said. There’s not really an action movie at this point that does it like this and there’s some really proper acting in it. My favorite scene is in the restaurant during the conversation between Ed Harris and Liam Neeson. It was another example where I said we don’t need music here – just let the actors act.
WAMG: Fans of this genre will appreciate your themes for Jimmy and Shawn Maguire and as well as Jimmy and his son, Mike. Both are very subtle moments of your score.
Junkie XL: There are two main themes – one is for Jimmy and one is for Shawn. Then it gets sprinkled down to their sons. The theme for Michael is very much related to Jimmy, while the theme for Danny is very much related to his dad Shawn. It seems to make a lot of sense to have just those two. In a movie like this you could go with almost too many themes and then it becomes cluttered. I wanted to make it very clear what the intention is and what these characters are going through.
WAMG: The movie is about surviving the night, but it’s also about redemption.
Junkie XL: The movie is totally about redemption and the most beautiful part of the theme that I hint at, at the beginning, comes at the very end when Liam Neeson’s character dies and his hand falls to the right that we see the card with all the names of the people he’s killed. Plus his son Michael and the FBI agent need redemption too, so at the very end everyone finds some kind of peace. That’s why I took the thematic material from Jimmy and Michael and turned it into a warm, fuzzy motif because at that point in his life he’s fine where he is, and he got to have that moment with his dad. Jimmy’s only got one shot at redemption, at having his son not hate him anymore.
WAMG: How much of the movie did you see or even know about before composing the score?
Junkie XL: They waited quite a long time and I got in really late in the mix. I received a call somewhere in November from Darren Higman (Vice President of Music at Warner Bros.) and he said that the movie would be opening up soon and would I be interested. I said yes. He then asked if I could write a small demo theme of a couple of minutes that could help convince the director that I was the right guy.
He then told me the story of the film and I was so inspired that I wrote twenty minutes of music. I went to Warner Brothers where I saw the film, and realized the music I wrote would fit perfectly with it and then went back and wrote another 35 minutes of music. I ended up having 55 minutes of a sketchbook.
I met the director for the first time and handed him 55 minutes of music for the film. He listened to the whole thing and Collet-Serra said, “this is like the story of the movie!” He called me back later that night and said it was perfect and exactly what he was looking for.
After I got the job, we started turning it into cues and we only ended up having two meetings about the music because he was so convinced because I got what the movie needed. That’s a very important task for a composer to take that kind of stress off the director. They have a lot of things on their mind and by making a sketchbook of the music, that’s one less thing for them to worry about.
WAMG: The interesting transitions of jumping from one part of the city to the next through visual effects are very compelling. Did you see that before you started composing?
Junkie XL: That was as we went. When I saw the movie for the first time, it didn’t have those shots. At that specific point, the movie was testing so well with audiences, they were able to add those clever special effects. I think it’s important to the story because it shows the audience what’s going on in different parts of the city and correlates to the previous scene. The violence in the film is very personal – it’s not just a bunch of random shootings with people dropping like flies. The music didn’t need to be big during those scenes and it needed to feel personal.
The score gets the biggest halfway through the film when Jimmy and Michael are stuck inside the apartment building with the hired killer (played by Common) and the police are surrounding them, that’s where the music gets really big. It’s also the moment in the film where if they can’t make it through here, there’s not going to be a future to begin with. After that scene, it kind of mellows down again and the violence becomes personal again to the one on one situation. I thought it was great to score that scene really big then go back to small.
WAMG: Nick Nolte’s unexpected cameo is pretty cool. The music is very gritty like the classic hit man films of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Junkie XL: I’ve been doing a lot of research on these older movies. I went as far back as “Le professionnel” with Jean-Paul Belmondo with a score from Ennio Morricone, or even THE GODFATHER – all these movies were scored with a very emotional theme. We’re talking about a modern 2015 movie and it’s hard to make films for a big audience where there’s mostly no music and just music only where it counts.
Unfortunately that’s not the case and people want to be thrilled constantly, but I do feel RUN ALL NIGHT has a high level of 70’s quality to it and how it’s composed. Plus, how it looks and how it sounds – the sound effects are not overpowering either which is usually the case in an action movie. It’s nice for a composer to fill the blanks with music that tells the story, especially on this film. It was great to make music that was actually going to be heard.
WAMG: You covered the gamut of instruments for the score. What was your go-to instruments for the score?
Junkie XL: The signature instrument for Liam’s character was the piano. The signature instrument for Shawn (Ed Harris) was a solo cello. I used a distinct signature rhythm especially for Mr. Price (Common), the hired hitman.
Then I used a lot of unique sound designs from voices and choirs that I recorded a long time ago which was a very signature sound along with synthesizers and certain melodies and harmonies.
WAMG: What other film scores are you composing for?
Junkie XL: I’m going to be writing two during the rest of the year.
I’m starting on the reboot of POINT BREAK. That movie comes out in December so I have some time still.
I’m also working on BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE which I will be doing with Hans Zimmer. He will do Superman and I will do Batman. We did MAN OF STEEL together, plus MADAGASCAR 3 and MEGAMIND. We have a track record of collaboration.
My score is finished for MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. It comes out in May, and while I can’t say too much on that, the movie is spectacular.
The RUN ALL NIGHT original motion picture soundtrack is available now from Water Tower Music.
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
From Warner Bros. Pictures comes the action thriller RUN ALL NIGHT, starring Oscar nominee Liam Neeson, Joel Kinnaman, Vincent D’Onofrio, Oscar winner Common and Oscar nominee Ed Harris, under the direction of Jaume Collet-Serra (“Non-Stop”).
Brooklyn mobster and prolific hit man Jimmy Conlon (Neeson), once known as The Gravedigger, has seen better days. Longtime best friend of mob boss Shawn Maguire (Harris), Jimmy, now 55, is haunted by the sins of his past—as well as a dogged police detective (D’Onofrio) who’s been one step behind Jimmy for 30 years. Lately, it seems Jimmy’s only solace can be found at the bottom of a whiskey glass.
But when Jimmy’s estranged son, Mike (Kinnaman), becomes a target, Jimmy must make a choice between the crime family he chose and the real family he abandoned long ago. With Mike on the run, Jimmy’s only penance for his past mistakes may be to keep his son from the same fate Jimmy is certain he’ll face himself…at the wrong end of a gun. Now, with nowhere safe to turn, Jimmy just has one night to figure out exactly where his loyalties lie and to see if he can finally make things right.
From Warner Bros. Pictures, RUN ALL NIGHT will be released onMarch 13.
WAMG invites you to enter for a chance to win passes (Good for 2) to the advance screening of RUN ALL NIGHT on March 9th at 7PM in the St. Louis area.
We will contact the winners by email.
Answer the following:
Ed Harris had a voice cameo in an Oscar nominated film from 2013.
Name the film.
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OFFICIAL RULES:
1. YOU MUST BE IN THE ST. LOUIS AREA THE DAY OF THE SCREENING.
2. A pass does not guarantee a seat at a screening. Seating is on a first-come, first served basis. The theater is overbooked to assure a full house. The theater is not responsible for overbooking.
3. No purchase necessary.
RUN ALL NIGHT has been rated R by the MPAA for strong violence, language including sexual references, and some drug use.
