Veteran screenwriter Scott Frank (Get Shorty, the underrated Out of Sight) directs revenge movie honcho Liam Neeson in this at once ugly and grim suspense-cum-horror tale. Based on the novel by Lawrence Block, Neeson portrays Matthew Scudder, an unlicensed private investigator and former NYPD cop. The film contains plenty of familiar crime movie fodder: Scudder’s a recovering alcoholic who attends A.A. meetings, and he’s got a ghost in his closet that is slowly revealed in the film. Along the way to solving a series of murder/kidnappings, he’s at first a reluctant participant in helping a drug dealer (Dan Stevens, Downton Abbey) who can’t go to the police. The goal is to get back at the kidnappers, who enjoy extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom money and then returning the chopped up female victim in pieces.
Once Scudder commits, he bumps into a wiseass young teenager, T. J. (rapper Brian “Astro” Bradley), in a library while going through microfiche–yea, microfiche. This is 1999 and our hero Matt doesn’t get along well with things like cell phones. We’ll be reminded of his Luddite tendencies a few times in the film (along with his deliberate voiceover rendering of The A.A. 12 steps while Scudder contemplates his payback.) The kid, too, feels familiar but at least he provides a little excitement with his banter and older-than-his-years bravado, even if his knowledge of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe annoys more than it amuses.
T. J. throws out a lot more energy than any of the other supporting characters provide. While Neeson, now 62, is his usual charismatic force–he’s especially great in barking orders over the phone to two kidnapping suspects–the villains and the drug dealers who surround him are disappointingly drab. A cemetery groundskeeper (Olafur Darri Olafsson) seems so cuckoo he creates an expectation that he might provide some fun, as do a pair of kidnappers whose brutality is uncommonly vicious. Yet, they, too, come off more lackluster than scary. They mutilate their victims, then bore the viewers.
The film’s depiction of sadism can be downright discomforting, yet most of the nastiest stuff is alluded to rather than depicted. For no good reason, the pair of killers also appear to be gay. Frank gets the atmosphere right as he captures the seedy interiors and street scenes of Brooklyn’s Red Hook. For a better crime movie also with a run-down Brooklyn setting, check out The Drop, which received an almost simultaneous release as this film. That is, unless you’re hooked on Neeson–I can think of a lot worse guilty pleasures. In A Walk Among The Tombstones, it’s refreshing to watch him move so effortlessly from quiet and guilt-ridden to forcefully concise and powerful.
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