Blacklight Review

My favorite part of any action movie is the black SUV: you know, the one that stalks our a would-be protagonist's significantly smaller car, picking up the obvious bad-guy from location to location, and is always so shiny. And in the new movie "Blacklight," the second I spotted that ebony sports utility vehicle, my expectations were set in stone- this is a Liam Neeson film.

Its plot is a bit more complicated than what you'd might expect from this generation's Charles Bronson. I mean sure, his family is in jeopardy and soon goes missing, but it leans far more into the political intrigue of it all than I was anticipating. It felt like a modern-day take on the kind of film you'd see in the 1970's, with everyone's favorite Irishman playing government operative Travis Block, who winds up in a web of lies that "come right from the top of the FBI(!)." That is, of course, if you believe defector Dusty (Taylor John Smith), who's grown a conscience, and an up-and-coming online reporter Mira (Emmy Raver-Lampman), who's looking for her big story.

Travis is also "the best of the best," because naturally he is, but he also suffers from obsessive-compulsion disorder, and his main motivation for the narrative here is, in a rare moment of acting his age (I mean the man's nearly seventy), is wanting to retire to spend more time with his granddaughter Natalie (Gabriella Sengos). She's picking up on her granddaddy's delusions, and there's a cute throwaway gag where he gifts her a stun gun for her birthday. It's a shame there aren't more of these cockeyed bits.

All the major beats from any other picture cut from the same cloth are present in slow-burning 108 minute runtime, just organized a bit differently. The moment where our hero realizes the truth comes sooner than I thought, the disappearance of his kin occurs much later than the trailers would have you believe, but it's all stock script beats. It fits comfortably into the Liam Neeson mold, mildly refreshing the usual mold of his works while remaining firmly in his wheelhouse. Fans should enjoy what they see, even if they've seen it before.

The main car chase is fortunately far more entertaining than the one from "Honest Thief," the last time he teamed up with director Mark Williams, involving a garbage truck which of course dumps trash bags into the pursuing automobile. The action is pleasant, but one or two more big moments could have livened up the overall muted tone.

None of this probably matters, because the biggest selling point is leading man Liam Neeson. I'm giving "Blacklight" two and a half stars because it's an effective Liam Neeson movie. He retains a commanding screen presence, owning whatever frame he's in; he's too good for the movies he's starring in! 'Tis the curse of being Liam Neeson I guess.