Liam Neeson’s transition into an action hero came with the unexpected success of the film ‘Taken’ which was worldwide IllMaim Neeson’s skill set and translates it into commercial violence. He has portrayed various characters in that skill set that the audience has taken a liking to. Having passed the mark of 70 now, Liam has hinted that his time playing violent characters may be winding to an end but seems at the same being inundated with projects in upcoming times. However, after taking a look at the promo and watching Absolution, one can confirm that this decision of his is unlikely to raise eyebrows. In fact, considering the plethora of exasperating films that are made in Hollywood today, Absolution is a mild one, but it does feel like a Gatling gun that is used except that it follows a really grueling movie.
Neeson portrays a character simply credited as Thug, an ex-boxer who works as an enforcer for a local gangster named Charlie Conner played by Ron Perlman, along with his son Kyle played by Daniel Diemer. During the day, he works for these criminals and at night he lives alone in a working-class area of Boston. The situation however looks like it’s about to change when he meets someone known only as Woman played by Yolanda Ross. The meeting takes place after Thug punches Woman’s abusive boyfriend one night at the bar. He starts to experience sleeplessness, anxiety, and problems with cognition and memory. Finally, after a series of troubling mental lapses, he consults a doctor who informs him that he has an advanced case of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and has no more than two years to live before he becomes incapable of taking care of himself.
After failing to end his life due to lack of commitment, he decides to get his life together at least till his remaining time on this planet. (You saw the title.) For starters, he wishes to try and build a relationship with his two grown children that he left behind. On the other hand, when he wishes to reconnect with his daughter Daisy (Frankie Shaw), she straightforwardly rejects him and tells him that the ‘friendship’ with his son is just not there, and on top of that she is on the verge of losing her home due to financial instability which ensures her for a troubled future.
At the same time he is dropping off some packages for his boss, he accidentally stumbles on a human trafficking scene and therefore decides to try and help one of the victims out, Deanna Tarraza, by trying to come up with a plan. As if that wasn’t sufficient, someone recently went out of their way and tried to kill him while he was on his work shift which goes to show there is someone out there who wishes to kill him. Strikingly, almost all the points regarding the film’s storyline, which I raised have been addressed in the violent non-ending of the film’s last sequence.
If most of this sounds kind of familiar to you then it’s because it’s Tony Gatyon’s screenplay which to most feels like one giant action mashup of all of Neeson’s films with his tough guy which possessed a serious cognitive problem impression that he pulled off in Memory (2022) which frankly is the best way to describe the film. Yes, the film does take the foot off of the gas pedal for the most part of the first half of the movie however, as it primarily revolves around his failed attempts at being the perfect husband and father to his daughter and getting to know his grandson Terrence Pulliam that he has never met as well as hallucinations of his father who displayed the same exact neglect, abuse, and ridicule. The interactions between Thug and his grandson were somewhat adorable but still remained very run-of-the-mill, and those of you who were lured in by the action-packed trailer are definitely going to find the movie a drag.
Some of the other elements, however, such as the conceit of leaving two of the central characters without proper names or the dream interludes of his father, do not fare at all and only serve to suggest further artistic aspirations that the film is not able to touch at all.
“Absolution” was directed by Hans Petter Moland who also worked with Neeson in one of the best of his action programs, the slyly funny and enjoyable “Cold Pursuit” (2019). So, this one is not close to being as good as that, the sentimentality on display here is worlds apart from the dark humor of their teaming up earlier, but this too has been made with some measure of skill and does not have the late period cannon films fodder feel of such duds such as The Marksman (2021), Blacklight (2022), Retribution (2023) and other films that by now you probably have forgotten even existed although, this is about two hours, does go on a bit too long for what is plot-wise a slim narrative.
With respect to Neeson, he still has that someone who is ready to kick some butts and even in the hackneyed moments, he does provide the film with an undeniable gravity. But even so, it can be quite painful to watch him go through his paces over here. Imagine watching a grand pianist play “Chopsticks” for 112 minutes it is appalling. Neeson does the task at hand Sufficiently enough but the whole lot of us including Neeson knows that he is capable of better and above-par work than that.
Neeson’s most of the work consists of working on fast-paced action movies with lots of hand-to-hand combat. If Neeson’s acting career wasn’t devised around the action films for the last decade, then Absolution would have been considered a good film. This is how self-explanatory this film sounds, this film is set as a promising action film but fails to do so, and instead becomes a Neeson action movie, which really only disappoints. As someone who has actually seen the lion’s share of those films, I can tell you that this is probably one of the better examples of that most curious of sub-genres. But to be fair, this simply shows how bad most of the action movies made with Neeson were through the years, but it is solely based on one’s belief Value of the current movie and its genre.
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