The Commuter (2018)

Liam Neeson appears to have slowed down the frantic pace at which he was churning out these sub-Bourne thrillers (certainly not without their merits) in the mid 2010's, all stemming from 2008's Taken, which itself spawned two sequels. Then we had Non-Stop (2014) which was essentially Taken on a plane, and The Commuter, which is more or less Taken on a train.

What's surprising about The Commuter is not its plot or indeed the utter predictability and lunacy of everything happening on screen, but the efficiency with which Jaume Collet-Serra bolts it all together.

Neeson's Michael is an insurance agent who takes the same train to and from work every day, a journey we see in a rather neat opening sequence as Collet-Serra cuts between days and seasons to provide us with an idea of the mundane life Michael has led since he left the police force ten years previously. After he is seemingly unceremoniously fired one day, on his return journey Vera Farmiga sits down opposite him and offers him a deal, which would provide Michael with money he badly needs. Problem is, naturally, someone is going to get killed. From here on in it's business as usual for Neeson as he punches his way through every carriage of the train in hunt of the person he needs to track down, a search that inevitably ends with his family being threatened over the phone. It's absolutely standard fare, but the difference between this and something like Unknown (2011) is that it doesn't attempt to be something more complicated than it is, and although it perhaps lacks the adrenaline fueled madness of Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) or the more polished film-making of Tony Scott's Unstoppable (2010), The Commuter is certainly one of the better Neeson action flicks which it didn't really have any right to be. 6.3/10