![]() ![]() But with such bereavement also comes abasement: These films are often steeped in shame, with Neeson’s character having to confront his crimes, his inadequacies, and his failures as a husband, a father, a man.Īnd so, at the start of Honest Thief, Neeson’s soft-spoken Tom Carter, whose decade-long string of small-town bank robberies gained him the unfortunate nickname “the In-and-Out Bandit,” meets the woman of his dreams - a spunky, middle-aged divorcée named Annie Sumpter (Kate Walsh) - and decides that he must fess up to his sins. Some of his more serious efforts, like The Grey, Widows, or A Monster Calls, or this year’s Ordinary Love and Made in Italy, tackle the theme of grief head-on. (He has been admirably open about the real-life agony of her passing over the years.) Over and over, movies like Unknown, The Commuter, and Run All Night feature his character either trying to preserve what’s left of his family or trying to avenge it. As I noted a couple of months ago, the trend started around the time of the tragic 2009 death of Neeson’s wife, the actress Natasha Richardson, and the films he has made since reflect the pain and anxiety of his loss. His lucrative run of beat-’em-ups has been dismissed by critics as so much lizard-brain fluff, but there has always been a core of tragic penance to them. This actor, who for so long had exuded a kind of regal, righteous charm, came into his own later in his career playing broken men fighting for the lives they once had. Honest Thief is also tailor-made for Neeson’s onscreen persona, which these days seems to be equal parts regret and rage. ![]() And that streamlined, bare-bones quality serves the film well. ![]() It’s a subdued, at times even intimate, old-guy action flick. How many more asses can he kick, and for how much longer? Honest Thief, his latest, doesn’t dance around this reality. Yes, Liam Neeson is getting too old for this shit, but at least this movie realizes it.Īll good things must come to an end, and the Liam Neeson dadsploitation craze - which started with the runaway success of the first Taken movie in 2008 and continued through last year’s goofy, grisly snowplow-revenge thriller Cold Pursuit - appears to have entered its sundown years. ![]()
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