Retribution – Liam Neeson Is So Back

Liam Neeson is 71 years old and he is still making action movies… or trying to. He was sitting down for at least 90% of the runtime, and he is in every scene.

When I first learned that Mr. Neeson had another film coming out, I knew I had to see it in theaters. This particular genre (bad Neeson action movies) is a guilty pleasure of Tori and myself. We’ve seen 13 of these, and I will happily leave my ranking of them at the bottom of this post.

Retribution is the story of Matt (Neeson) who is told by an unknown caller there is a bomb under his seat while driving his two children to school. The caller makes increasingly complex demands of Neeson in order to get ransom money, lest he blow Neeson and his family sky-high.

The acting could’ve been a lot better. Even Liam seemed to be – pun very much intended – phoning it in here. The actors playing the kids weren’t great either.

I’ll throw a compliment in now. The tension was able to be sustained throughout the entire runtime, which is not something I can say I expected out of this. I felt invested throughout the incredibly tight 90 minute runtime. Lots of action films are really “taken” their time and feel like they could “run all night” long.

It has a predictable ending, and I saw the reveal of who the villain was many, many miles away. The film also has one of the strangest abrupt endings I’ve ever seen. It is almost just a cut-to-black in the middle of a scene. It felt like we were going to have five more minutes to wrap things up. Nope.

The premise of the story is fine, but in execution it feels rather underwhelming and could’ve been much better. This is a remake of a Spanish film, so I’d be somewhat curious to know the differences here (but not curious enough to do the research).

Overall, I’ve definitely seen much worse. But I wouldn’t rush to see this unless you’re a Neeson completionist (like Tori and myself). I’d give it a score of 5/10

As promised, here’s my rankings of the bad Neeson action movies I’ve seen. If you enjoy this genre as much as I do, leave your favorites in the comments.

1. Non-Stop
2. Unknown
3. The Commuter
4. Taken
5. Run All Night
6. Retribution
7. Taken 2
8. Honest Thief
9. The Marksmen
10. Taken 3
11. Blacklight
12. Ice Road
13. Memory

And apologies for missing last week. I have been in the process of moving across the country… AKA driving more than Liam Neeson in this film!