Retribution Review

I imagine Liam Neeson read the script to "Retribution," his latest "geezer pleaser," saw he sits in a Mercedes Benz for almost the entire thing and thought "wow this is gonna be an easy paycheck." But it's only because he's bound by touchscreen and chrome door handles that he actually gets an opportunity to do some real acting.

Not that the end-product is Shakespeare, it's just a brief thriller, but Liam gives his character Matt Turner such dimension that you're wondering if he thought it might be. At first coming off as a workaholic, and frankly deadbeat, husband and father, and there is a weariness so barely underneath that by the time he gets the phone call telling him there's a bomb in his car (the same car his kids are in), his face and voice somehow expressed rage and worry ontop of the exhaustion. He remains consistently the best thing about his movies, and for fans, "Retribution" has the goods.

Too bad the rest is old hat; the explosive has a pressure trigger, meaning that if he leaves his supple leather seat, kaboom. Or in cinema terms, it's a riff on "Speed," a superior film because of one critical failing here: the villain. Their identity is supposed to be a surprise (speaking to Matt via a voice-changer), robbing us of a juicy character actor to really engage the audience. By the time the big reveal comes, not only is it obvious, but also it is a character actor who clearly is eager to sink their teeth into. It's such a shame it comes far too late in the otherwise breezy runtime.

I won't lie though: it doesn't always make a whole lot of sense; at one point the mysterious person on the phone warns Matt "not" to stop the vehicle, but wouldn't you know, what felt like ten minutes later and the car is parked! The bad guy's demands, or rather their motivation, is also hidden until almost the halfway point, so you spend time guessing only for it to not matter.

But whatever: "Retribution" is another high-concept Liam Nesson film ("the one where Liam Neeson drives a car with a bomb"), so much so that eventually Hollywood is gonna run out of families for him to need to avenge.