Run All Night

Liam Neeson’s gearshift into playing grizzled, gun-toting badasses has resulted in so many action movies starring the imposing Irishman that they could easily all be tarred with the same brush. But there are actually a few strata in his late-career body of work – it’s unfair to lump ambitious and thoughtful (if at times uneven) films like The Grey and A Walk Among The Tombstones with the increasingly slapdash and stupid Taken thrillers.

Sitting smack in between these two poles is the handful of movies Neeson has made with Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra; their first collaboration, Unknown, was a Bourne Identity knockoff with just enough flair to patch over the plotholes but their follow-up Non-Stop was a smart, stylish airborne adventure and an excellent showcase for the actor’s tough-but-tender appeal.

Run All Night, the third Neeson/Collet-Serra joint, is a fine addition to the gallery, a gritty, downbeat drama with some well-staged, hard-hitting action sequences thrown in. The two modes don’t always sit comfortably next to one another – it sometimes feels like Collet-Serra takes a break from the story to wedge in a shootout or fistfight – but the director’s confident handling of Brad Ingelsby’s screenplay generally keeps it belting along nicely.

Neeson plays Jimmy Conlon, whose glory days as the fearsome underworld trigger-man nicknamed ‘The Gravedigger’ are long behind him. Now he’s a beer-for-breakfast joke, haunted by his murderous past and barely tolerated by his criminal colleagues, except for best friend and boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). But when Jimmy’s estranged son Michael (Joel Kinnaman) is the sole witness to a murder committed by Shawn’s hot-headed son, bullets start flying, Shawn’s son is killed and Shawn swears revenge against Jimmy and Michael. There’s no love lost between father and son but they’ll have to work together if they’re gonna survive.

Themes like ‘living with a lifetime of regret’ or ‘the sins of the father being visited upon the son’ aren’t exactly new, but if they’re conveyed with conviction they can still pack a punch. Run All Night works a treat when it’s flooring the accelerator or squeezing the trigger, but when Neeson and Harris – seriously, a great match-up – are seated across a table from one another, their pain, anger and remorse tangible, the movie truly hits home.