While some people treated Liam Neeson’s switch from “serious” actor to creaky-limbed action conquerer as something of a joke, there are other who would doubtlessly die on their hill that the genre of movie that saw the one-time Oskar Schindler was by far the most fun of the actor’s career. While I haven’t gotten proper confirmation yet, I’m 99% certain that director Jaume Collet-Serra falls in this category thanks to the fact that his 2015 thriller, Run All Night, was the third of the four, rapid-fire collaborations he had with the growly actor between 2011 and 2018.
However, say what you will about these various collaborations, at least both Collet-Serra and Neeson made sure they had more going for them then just being the usual, Taken clones and while Run All Night certainly has more than it’s fair share of its lead blowing away scumbags like he’s getting paid by the bullet hole, this entry into the Neeson cannon fits more into a hard-boiled crime flick than your typical actioner. Can a cast filled to the brim with familiar faces help Neeson’s action phase continue to run a lite longer than just all night?
With a nickname like “The Gravedigger”, you’d expect a broken down hitman like Jimmy Conlon to be plagued with the faces of his many victims, but even for a guy who slaughtered many for the Irish mob, even his gargantuan intake of booze can’t hope to cleanse his tattered conscience. Furthermore, his estranged son is disgusted by his former life, his colleagues think his an alcohol pickled joke and dogged police detective Harding won’t rest until he uncovers the true amount of Conlon’s victims – however, the only person who treats him with any respect is mob boss Shawn Maguire who rose up with him through the criminal ranks.
However, Maguire is having a few issues with his own son as young Danny is eager to make his own mark and has done a deal with Albanian drug dealers to move heroin through his father’s docks. Denying them the permission Danny has been paid to get them, Shawn urges that his spawn cleans up his own mess, only for things to get extra messy in no time at all when he opts to shoot his problems away. Matters gain yet another wrinkle when the witness to the killing proves to be Mike, Jimmy’s son and after the broken down, former muscle is brought in to smooth things over, matter degenerate when a fateful bullet ensures that neither Jimmy nor Mike have a safe haven anywhere.
Now pursued by the mob, corrupt cops, clean cops and even a near-unkillable assassin, both Jimmy and Mike have to try and settle their differences if either have any chance of making it through the night. But if he truly wants to secure any kind of future for his son and his family, Jimmy may have to resort to some of his old, brutal habits to make amends with his own blood.
Collet-Serra may have stuck Neeson in a cab for Unknown, a plane for Non-Stop and a train for The Commuter, but Run All Night sees everyone’s favorite 63 year-old neck snapper having to use those legs of his as the plot requires him to zip all over New York in order to pull Joel Kinnaman’s fat out of a fire that progressively gets ever hotter, but those expecting another straight action romp or even another conspiracy thriller might be pleasantly surprised. Taking more of a hard-boiled crime thriller approach that invokes the more mournful, broken-nosed grit of A Walk Among The Tombstone and the resulting flick feels like Road To Perdition for the Taken generation as it positively yearns for middle-aged redemption.
Taking point and obviously relishing playing a decrepit hoodlum weighed down with regrets and liquor is Neeson who ensures every sigh, every furrowed brow and every regretful glance carries an insane amount of traumatic baggage as his voice is so rough, you could use it to sand wood. Run All Night? A first it seems that the man could barely jog for ten minutes. In fact, the film actually has a little fun with how far is enforcer has fallen by having him suffer the indignity of dressing and Santa and then cut loose with a drunken crash out that sees him leering at other people’s wives and swearing at kids. Of course, when the chips are down, Neeson’s character snaps back into optimum killer mode and while it’s cool to watch him lope into a mob bar and start slaughtering the patrons, there’s a sense that the action demands usurp the gritty drama the film takes get pains to build. Still, Collet-Serra manages to bridge the shift well, even if dome of the components don’t quite match up. For example, the likes of Neeson, Ed Harris and Nick Nolte ensure you get enough grizzle for you schizzle, but the pained family drama and strained brothers in crime connection between Jimmy and Shawn feel like they’re from a far different movie that produces Common’s Terminator-like hitman, or a scene where he and Neeson trade blows with flaming planks in a burning building.
However, while the filmmakers seem a bit uncertain exactly where on the action/thriller spectrum Run All Night falls, an entire pantheon of hardened thespians are on hand to ensure that matters still remain somewhat grounded. Harris can play leathery mob bosses in his sleep, but thankfully you’d never be able to tell even if he was and he finds a good balance between cold blooded monster and honor bound crook that helps create needed layers in the relationship between Jimmy and Shawn. Elsewhere, Joel Kinnaman and Boyd Holbrook as the sons of the two, aging criminals, play moral polar opposites while sharing a deep rooted resentment of their parents, but while the former does a far better job then some actors in this kind of resentful son role (Jai Courtney in A Good Day To Die Hard, for example), it’s always fun to watch Holbrook play the scumbag. But in addition, we also have Vincent D’Onofrio, Bruce McGill, Holt McCallany and the aforementioned Nick Nolte who, in a single scene, makes Neeson’s boozehound seem like a spring chicken by comparison, and the ensemble adds a sizable amount of class to a story that demands a hefty amount of gravitas.
However, there’s a sense that the powers that be felt that what could have been a grim, sober crime story, needed to be brought more in line with the type of expectation that comes with a latter day Neeson bruise-fest. Hence we get weird, GTA5 style, bullet-time scene transitions that feel a bit out of place, and all-or-nothing setpieces that feel like a belated attempt to recreate the Hong Kong Heroic Bloodshed flicks of the 80s and 90s.
Far better than your expectations would probably lead you to believe, Run All Night proves to be way more interesting and complex than your basic, Liam lambaster. But the veteran cast and the dramatic heft sits uneasily with some of the more broader action beats as Jaume Collet-Serra tries to pacify both camps at once. Still, despite this, Run All Night ends up arguably as the best of his four collaborations with Neeson and thus is unjustly underrated – because if nothing else, the notion of watching the guy fuck people up while wrestling with epic amounts of self-loathing will seemingly run and run.
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