The Commuter - movie review
The Commuter
Plot: A businessman is caught up in a criminal conspiracy during his daily commute home.
Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Certificate: 15 (strong violence, injury detail)
Runtime: 1hr 45 mins
Release Date: Friday 19th January 2018
In 2008, Liam Neeson's daughter was kidnapped in TAKEN. In 2011, Liam Neeson lost his memory in UNKNOWN and had to fight wolves in the snow in THE GREY. In 2012, Liam Neeson and his wife were kidnapped in TAKEN 2. In 2013, Liam Neeson took a year off. In 2014, Liam Neeson is accused of his wife's murder in TAKEN 3 and had to stop a would-be terrorist high in the sky in NON-STOP. In 2015, Liam Neeson has to clear his son's name after a mob mishap in RUN ALL NIGHT. In 2016, Liam Neeson took another year off. In 2017, Liam Neeson is stranded in 17th century Japan as he's punished for his faith in SILENCE. And now in 2018, Liam Neeson has to spot a suspicious passenger on a train in THE COMMUTER. I think it's safe to say that if you're either related to Liam Neeson or are, in fact, Liam Neeson, then you're set for shitty life.
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| Liam Neeson goes into a train toilet and finds money. I go into a train toilet and I find used dirty needles, used condoms and puddles of wee. |
The Commuter is the newest team up between the world's most unluckiest man, Liam Neeson and director, Jaume Collet-Serra. The two have previously worked on Unknown, Non-Stop and Run All Night. Their first two collaborations were refreshingly different to the typical Liam Neeson shooting everyone he sees sub-genre, as it posed a much more cerebral journey that had its fair share of twists and turns. Run All Night was much more simplified with the only major highlight being Neeson and Ed Harris having a terrific back and forth. The Commuter lands directly in the middle in regards to quality. Admittedly, this isn't a Liam Neeson shoot-em-up and attempts to be a intriguing mystery thriller that keeps the audience on their toes and second guessing everything they see. At least, it ATTEMPTS to do that. In all honesty, I was debating to see The Commuter simply because the trailers had made it look diabolical. Thankfully, the trailers were an inaccurate indication of the film as a whole. The Commuter isn't a bad film in the slightest but it's just playing everything incredibly safe to get through the 105 minute runtime with as little scars as possible. Starting off on a positive note, Liam Neeson is always bankable in these sorts of roles. In The Commuter, he plays a typical everyman that conveniently happens to have combat training from his past that certainly won't come in handy later in the film *wink* *wink*. Neeson plays a rail commuter who, after having to balance housing fees, paying his son's college tuition and also recently finding himself unemployed is edging towards a downward spiral into a mid-life crisis. This is when Vera Farmiga enters the picture as a sultress who poses a more than hypothetical scenario for Neeson to partake in. The task? Find a mysterious passenger who does not belong that is harbouring a potential life-altering secret. The premise is relatively intriguing and the actual mystery has you hooked for the most part. Collet-Serra throws in a good number of twists and turns to stop the audience from slipping into boredom but the twists themselves are either incredibly predictable or too implausible that logic dictates the impossibility of it all.
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| He's obviously slept past his station. |
FACT: Patrick Wilson plays a cop named Alex Murphy. Alex Murphy was the name of the cop from RoboCop.
Simply put, The Commuter is an incredibly straightforward film that substitutes risks for safe bets and provides more of the generic thrills a film like this typically contains. The first two acts plod along nicely, if not overly memorable, but when the third act hits, the film begins to derail (pardon the pun). Despite being fifteen minutes shy of a two hour runtime, the final act of The Commuter drags significantly. The initial mystery has worn off at this point and the plot deviates away to a basic cop conspiracy that just so happens to tie into the central underlying mystery. It's sloppy, it's choppy but worst of all, it's absolutely pointless. If this film has ended twenty minutes earlier, we could have been looking at a decent time that I'd probably recommend for those looking for a easy watch. However, my best advice would be to leave just as the train starts to derail to save yourself from a messy finale that simply doesn't know when to end. Not only does the film realise that it's squandered the talent of stars such as Patrick Wilson and Sam Neill but it thinks that it can redeem itself by plonking them back into the film haphazardly just to make use of them. Not to mention the fact that I was able to call one major twist only ten minutes into the film. On a slightly more positive note, it would be funny to see what a British adaptation of The Commuter would be like. I'm sure it wouldn't be anywhere near as thrilling due to one simple rule on a British train; we never talk to anyone. Not even our own families. British trains are a place of absolute silence aside from one guy who's playing his music for the entire coach to hear and another passenger who decides that everyone should be privy to their personal phone call no matter how sensitive the information. WE DON'T ALL WANT TO HEAR ABOUT HOW GARY DOESN'T TREAT YOU RIGHT, STACEY!!!!!!!! Moving on, my only real takeaway for The Commuter is that it's clear that Neeson and Collet-Serra have found a formula that produces results. Taking that into consideration, I'd like to see this duo take on a movie outside their wheelhouse. Remove the whole stationary setting aspect and race against time plot and give us something original that I'm sure both talents are capable of. Otherwise, in 2019, we're certain to get Liam Neeson aboard a cruise ship stopping a serial killer who is about to strike. I'm going to call it 'Anchors Away'.
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| First rule of train etiquette; Do not sit next to or opposite a fellow passenger is there are free and available seats elsewhere. |
Considering this was released in January (typically a dumping ground for movies that don't stand a chance), The Commuter is fairly surprising. It begins as an entertaining popcorn flick that you are happy to roll with the punches and enjoy the fun (if predictable) twists. Unfortunately, the demons of January come swooping in for the final act delivering a messy and unnecessarily convoluted finale that spoils the work The Commuter had achieved up until then. As far as Liam Neeson thrillers go, this is an inoffensive, solid entry if slightly disposable.
My Verdict: 6.5/10
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