A Walk Among the Tombstones (**½)
Directed by: Scott Frank
Starring: Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens,
Boyd Holbrook, Sebastian Roché, Brian Bradley, David Harbour
Seen: November 9th 2014
**½ Out of ****
For those who absolutely can’t wait
for the next Taken movie, desperate for a Liam Neeson fix, A Walk Among the
Tombstones may give some slight reprieve. It’s nowhere near what the Taken
movies are, but a tough Liam Neeson is similar. Taken is bombastic action and
fighting, A Walk Among the Tombstones is more of a slow, ponderous thriller.
While Taken takes the heavy subject of human trafficking as a base to build an
ass-kicking movie, A Walk Among the Tombstones is far darker, almost revelling
in the gloom of two psychopaths kidnapping and murdering out of compulsive need.
This is not light entertainment, and the movie’s bleak and greyish hue
throughout makes a stark story even tougher.
The movie introduces us to Matthew
Scudder (Neeson), a quasi-alcoholic, off-duty cop drinking at a local bar in
1991, one of those bars where cops don’t pay. When the bar is robbed at
gunpoint and the owner shot, Scudder pursues the killers and brutally shoots
them down. One shot from his gun however also fatally wounds a seven year old girl.
Scudder is so shaken by this that he quits the force and joins Alcoholics
Anonymous, and he only does some small private investigator jobs to pay the
bills and attempt some sort of redemption.
After an AA meeting eight years later,
one of Scudder’s group members invites him to see an acquaintance of his
regarding a possible job. The man Scudder is to meet is Kenny (Stevens), a
local crime boss whose wife was kidnapped and ransomed and murdered after
payment of the ransom. Kenny wants Scudder to find the culprits, in order for
him to exact revenge. Scudder wants nothing to do with Kenny, but later decides
to assist, as the kidnappers have done this before, and will do so again. In
Scudder’s investigation he meets TJ (Bradley), a homeless boy who becomes an
informant of sorts, and with the over-eager boy not far behind, Scudder
uncovers more and more that may lead him to the psychopaths and a violent
showdown.
Liam Neeson is very good as Scudder, a
fully fleshed character brought to dull but truthful life. Everyone else however
barely registers as more than mere plot carriers, with only Brian Bradley
eliciting some compassion as Scudder’s homeless helper. Their relationship is
succinct to the point of forgetting it, but raises a blip of feeling at the
conclusion. The villains are mostly faceless, and when they finally do appear,
they’re relatively underwhelming, even though their veneer is demonstrably
evil.
A Walk Among the Tombstones is decent,
but forgettable. The grey sallowness of the film is draining, and nothing in the
movie does much to carry colour or feeling. This offers a bleak and cynical
view of humanity, and while it may in some cases not be far from reality, it’s
usually not what we go to the movies for.
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