The Commuter (2018)

Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra | 105 minutes | action, crime | Actors: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Sam Neill, Elizabeth McGovern, Killian Scott, Shazad Latif, Andy Nyman, Clara Lago, Roland Møller, Florence Pugh, Dean-Charles Chapman, Ella-Rae Smith, Nila Aalia , Colin McFarlane, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Adam Nagaitis, Kingsley Ben-Adir

Liam Neeson was once the man who portrayed Oskar Schindler in ‘Schindler’s List’ (1993) and who took care of the other-worldly Jodie Foster in ‘Nell’ (1994). Where most actors, as they get older, are cast for more subdued roles, the now 66-year-old born Northern Irishman has turned out to be an unlikely action hero. To his own surprise, by the way. His metamorphosis was started by the film ‘Taken’ (2008). “I thought that movie was going to be released on DVD right away,” Neeson said. “If I’m honest, that was even one of the reasons why I took that role. I was excited to go to Paris for three months, do physical activities that no one thought I was capable of, and have the film released straight to DVD. But then it suddenly became a huge success. I was a bit ashamed about it – just a little bit – but then all sorts of people suddenly sent scenarios of action films…” Since the unexpected success of ‘Taken’, Neeson has mainly released action films. Critics say it’s a waste of talent for a skilled actor like him to stoop to action spectacle, but the actor himself doesn’t seem to mind. When Steven Spielberg offered him the role of Abraham Lincoln for his biographical film ‘Lincoln’ (2012), Neeson turned down the part. The reason? He thought himself too old.

Apparently he feels far from being too old for the no-nonsense of Spanish action and horror filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra, because ‘The Commuter’ (2008) is after ‘Unknown’ (2011), ‘Non-Stop’ (2014) and ‘ Run All Night’ is the fourth film they made together. With ‘Non-Stop’ ‘The Commuter’ has even more in common; in both films, Neeson plays an innocent man who has to search for a dangerous madman in a speeding vehicle, and if he doesn’t find him in time, people will die. The main difference: ‘Non-Stop’ is set in an airplane and ‘The Commuter’ in a commuter train. Neeson plays Michael MacCauley, a former police officer and now sixty-year-old insurance agent who has been driving to work every day for ten years on the same train, often meeting the same people. During the financial crisis of 2008, he got into serious financial troubles. As his son heads to college, money worries for Michael and his wife Karen (Elizabeth McGovern) continue to play out. To make matters worse, he is told one morning that he is being fired. As if that wasn’t enough, he is approached on the train by a mysterious woman (Vera Farmiga) who calls herself Joanna. She makes him a ‘hypothetical’ proposal, but it turns out not to be that hypothetical. In exchange for $100,000, he must track down someone calling himself Prynne before the train reaches its terminus, and put a tracker in his bag. That it is serious is shown by the fact that Joanne does not shy away from using the lives of Michael’s wife and son as blackmail if he does not keep the agreement. What ensues is a race against time, in which our hero reluctantly has to track down the right person before he can figure out how the fork actually works.

‘The Commuter’ does not excel in originality and certainly not in credibility; as the film progresses, the plot twists become more and more ridiculous and it becomes increasingly difficult for the viewer to take the story seriously. This is a film made purely for entertainment and thanks to Neeson’s engaging portrayal and some nice action scenes, Collet-Serra manages to make us empathize with Michael MacCauley. But also for the action scenes, the more towards the end of the film, the more exaggerated it all becomes and the stronger the CGI puts a stamp on the whole. The observant viewer can see how the plot works in the first ten minutes. Then we see poor Neeson trotting back and forth through the train for 45 minutes, getting into skirmishes with shadowy types here and there (because everyone on the train is a potential suspect) and getting caught up in an increasingly unlikely web of conspiracies and bizarre developments. . The ridiculous last quarter of an hour definitely kills ‘The Commuter’. Hopefully we’ll see Liam Neeson again soon in a good movie, in which his talents are fully used. Because seeing him wrestle like this in a third-rate action bike gives the lovers of the sympathetic Northern Irish a little pain in the heart.