Ice Road: Vengeance Review

You've seen a movie or two where an aging "name" actor is slapped across the poster and trailer, only for them to make a glorified cameo appearance. The genre is usually action or thriller (or if the makers are feeling frisky, an action thriller), and stereotypically appeal to old men; they're commonly called, the cinematic slur, "geezer teaser," and everyone from Steven Segal to Sylvester Stallone is guilty to these quick paychecks, often eschewing large releases in favor of a very limited release, then littering the dying DVD section of mega-marts.

But not Liam Nelson: his films have him in almost every fight, shootout and action sequence, being a true professional by giving his niche audience what they want. I call his picture "geezer pleasers."

Only something strange happened with his latest venture, "Ice Road: Vengeance-" none of my local theaters were playing it when it came out last Friday, and not even a week later, it is ready to buy or rent digitally. This marks perhaps the beginning of the end of his late-career turn as a mainstream action hero, where he'll join the video-on-demand ranks of the few who still headline their films; Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van-Damme may soon have some company on every budget streaming service. 

"Ice Road: Vengeance" is, perhaps unsurprisingly,  not Liam Neeson's best film; hell, it's not even his best film with the word "ice road" in it. A sequel to 2021's guilty-pleasure "The Ice Road," where he played an ice road trucker, everyone's favorite aging Irish actor returns as Mike McCann, who is not seen steering a tractor-trailer on an ice road. Instead, we learn that Mike, struggling with survivors' guilt, heads out to Nepal to spread his deceased brother's ashes atop Mount Everest. So far, so snowy.

But cut to a nearby village, where the townspeople are angry at Rudra (Mahesh Jadu), a shady businessman who wants to build a dam. But the Rai family won't sell their land, leading to the mysterious death of Ganesh's (Shapoor Batliwalla) father. Fearing for his own life, he heads out into hiding in a remote cabin in the mountains, urging his son Vijay (Saksham Sharma) to leave the local market and join him. 

I've compared Liam Neeson to the late Charles Bronson in nearly every film of his I've reviewed, and this boilerplate plot makes this his "Messenger of Death." But I digress. 

Back to Mike, together with his guide Dhani (Fan Bingbing), they head up the mountain on a tour bus driven by Spike (Geoff Morrell). His quirky dialogue and shabby appearance makes the most of his limited screentime.

How do these two plots collide? Vijay of course takes the very same bus up to his father, but along for the ride are two assassins, who take the whole vehicle hostage in broad daylight and an extremely populated road. Mike and Dhani make quick-work of the crooks, naturally, knocking one out of the moving vehicle and tying up the other. After losing control of the bus, because Spike just didn't, you know, hit the brakes once the hitmen were neutralized, the local police show up and that's it, that's the end. Only it would be, if one of the passengers (Myers, played by Bernard Curry) hadn't gotten this feeling that something wasn't quite right.

What follows is scene after scene of increasingly goofy moments that betray both the budget and our star's reputation. Take, for example, when their bus tips over while being pursued by that bad businessman and his squad of bent cops, their axel torn right off. Mike and friends notice that down the cliff lies a vehicle graveyard, and are able to climb down the cliff and rig a pulley system to lift up parts of the abandoned trucks. It was so outlandish, so unrealistic and didn't have any bearings on the plot that I asked myself "what's the point?"

The whole production is like this. Why is this a sequel when it has almost nothing to do with the first one? Why is a film with the word "ice" in the title feature practically no ice? Why does Dhani know how to fight? Why are there no other tourists ascending what's probably the world's most famous mountain? Why is the CGI so shoddy? Does being a dumb movie mean I shouldn't ask those sorts of questions? What kind of dumb rule is that?!

Yet there are some admirable qualities- returning writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh does handle the action with some finesse, and effects (when practical) are impressive. Also returning is cinematographer Tom Stern, who sometimes fills my TV screen with beautiful shots.

But does being objectively bad film means I didn't enjoy "Ice Road: Vengeance?" Of course not; I never regretted my time sitting on my couch, my hand shoved deep in a box of candy. And, I mean, where else can see a seventy three year old, Oscar-nominee Liam Neeson take out a bad guy with an urn?