The Mongoose Review

Rob Schneider is "The Mongoose." Naw just kidding, as if I'd see a film staring that guy today. (Or any day for that matter.)

Liam Neeson actually stars in the new movie called "The Mongoose," whose name is Ryan "Fang" Flanagan, which has got to be his most ridiculous name since portraying a guy named "Coxman" in 2019's "Cold Pursuit-" wonder if that's his full government name?

But I digress. In true Neeson fashion, his character is a decorated former army captain clearly suffering from PTSD. His wife, the always wonderful Marisa Tomei, divorces him over his refusal to seek help for his sufferings, despite the two still very much being in love. He lives his days drinking and, well, this isn't the kind of picture that really gives anyone much backstory other than their favorite drink.

Now there's plot: Ryan gets a call that his exes current lover has struck her, and since he's such a good guy, he promises to go and get her belongings. But wouldn't you know it, he ends up in getting a gun pulled on him, a brawl ensues that leaves him wounded and the other guy in a puddle of his own blood. If there was ever a time to call the police it'd be now, but Ryan knows he's a powerful guy, a lawyer I think with plenty of connections at the station, so he flees the scene in a stolen car.

But not just any car, oh no, specifically a Ford Mustang Shelby Super Snake. Car guys all the around the world just let out a collective moan. Ryan crosses over from Kentucky and ends up in Texas, where a scenery-chewing Michael Chiklis runs the cops as a sorta throwback to the tobacco chewing hick cops from 70's Hollywood, only Thompson Evans' script is either too smart or too dumb to lean into the racial stereotypes.

Much of the film has everyone's favorite Irish actor buckled into a car seat, leaning left, right or sometimes even forward(!) as he turns he turns the steering wheel. That runs the rrisk of having the film to end up, ahem, running on fumes, but the narrative has Ryan to have flashbacks to his time as a P.O.W. in Afghanistan. He's supposed to be I think twenty years younger, but instead of recasting, digital de-aging or clever camera angles, they just have him grow out his beard- the first time I saw him like this I had to contain my laughter. Can't have the surprisingly full theater of geriatrics judging me.

I read on the interwebs that "The Mongoose," though set in America, was actually filmed in Australia, which I'm sure is obvious to anyone, erm, lucky enough to ever walk into the Lonestar State, but it didn't bother me. Hell, I also read in the same article that Neeson doesn't actually do the driving! The movie magic, it's-it's gone!!

The director Mark Vanselow has previously had been the star's longtime stunt coordinator and double, and he makes his directorial debut here. He's actually pretty good. Most of the stunts appear practical, with only the rare moment of CGI jank to take you out of the moment, and if there's ever a trend that needs to return to modern cinema it's that one. "The Mongoose" may not make much sense and not do anything to move the road movie subgenre forward, but it's easily Neeson's best pure action film in years.

Worth noting that, despite the similar setting, this is not a sequel to Neeson's 2023 film "Retribution. If I had a dime for every Liam Neeson action movie where he's in a car most of the time, then I'd have two dimes, which is simultaneously not much and a lot.