Unknown

Here’s an adequate thriller. The story is puzzling and hangs together reasonably well, Liam Neeson is always fun to watch, and it doesn’t strain the bounds of credibility … too much. For a while I’ve meant to make a list of Things You Have to Accept If You Want to Enjoy a Modern Action Movie. It would save me a lot of time, I could insert a link to it in most action movies. For now, I’ll only mention one: The Fistfight. By fistfight, I mean any fight where guns, knives, or swords aren’t used. (That will be next on the list: The Useless Automatic Rifle.) In a Fistfight, two men whale away at each other with fists or handy objects like bats, steel rebar, or 2-by-4s. They land punches that lift opponents off their feet or hurl them through walls, and they land them over and over again. After a fight that would put a real person in the hospital and have him hobbling around for weeks, the victor gets up, wipes off a little bit of blood on his cheek, and shows no other signs of wear at all. We all know it’s bullshit … but there it is. Accept it, or stop going to the movies.