I'm the only one ever cared about you. And all of that ended an hour ago when you killed my son.

Run All Night

(2015)

(SPOILERS) I quite like that we’re being “treated” to this never-ending run of Liam Neeson thrillers, some of which aren’t called Taken. None of them have actually been really good, but for a spell several have fooled you into thinking they might be. A common factor in the better ones is Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra, a director stylish enough, but not nearly auteurish enough, to make the unofficial trilogy he’s completed with Neeson feel nothing at all like an unofficial trilogy.

Run All Night is the best of the three, and like the others it kicks off with enough gumption – for a good hour – to suggest this will be a non-stop, edge-of-the-seat ride into the unknown. Or night, at any rate, as Neeson’s ex mob enforcer Jimy Conlon finds himself on the wrong side of his friend and boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris) and has precious hours to make things right. But then, the movie just sort of loses steam, never really quite fizzling out but making you wish you hadn’t got vaguely excited for its potential.

Part of the initial appeal is the calibre of the cast. Neeson, increasingly adopting the star posture of an elder, more hirsute Jason Statham but with less sense of humour, has no option but to raise his game opposite the likes of Harris and Joel Kinnaman as estranged son Mike. And the actual premise is diverting, as Jimmy, formerly Jimmy the Gravedigger, now a drunk haunted by his many acts of murder, shoots Maguire’s unhinged son Danny (Boyd Holbrook, who also appeared with Neeson in the also half-decent A Walk Among the Tombstones) dead before he can kill Mike, who has witnessed Danny’s anti-social antics. Shawn, only hours before comforting Jimmy and promising “Wherever we’re going, when we cross that line, we’re going together”, doesn’t even like his son, but as a father he loves him and so promises furious vengeance; he’ll kill Mike and make Jimmy view the evidence, and then he’ll kill Jimmy.

So it’s up to Jimmy to make sure Mike survives the night, with some dyspeptic bonding en route, plus altercations with cops on the payroll, encounters with ones who aren’t (Vincent D’Onofrio in a stock role, but still solid), and small but memorable roles for Bruce McGill, Nick Nolte and Holt McCallanay. There’s a gripping car chase, a cat-and-mouse on a subway platform, a bruising fight in a men’s room, and several conversations and meets between Jimmy and Shawn. But then Shawn calls in hitman Common, who instantly susses that Jimmy has a cabin retreat (because people in thrillers always have cabin retreats, all the better for a showdown) but singularly fails to finish him and his son off when he gets the chance.

The momentum is lost from this point, and Jimmy even has time to visit his ailing ma in hospital before heading for a shootout with Shawn, whereupon he dispatches his friend with surprising swiftness. That’s a pleasant surprise in a way (not so much that it leads to an entirely predictable aftermath with Common at said cabin), but more a disappointment as one was hoping for something meaty; why cast Harris if you aren’t going to make the most of him? Brad Inglesby also co-wrote the ultimately disappointing Out of the Furnace (although the fault there, giving him the benefit of the doubt, may be Scott Cooper, who ensured Black Mass was less than the sum of its parts), and there’s a feeling this could have gone a number of ways, but ends up just slickly forgettable, withdrawing from any tendency to weightiness the premise offers.

Collet-Serra has little inclination for such contemplation, of course. He’s all about the veneer, but he’s good with veneer. His scenic transitions are a step too far, however, as he lifts off from one point in the city and arrives at the next in a single extended shot. It’s attention-grabbing, but not nearly as arresting as it sounds, and also at odds with what is, in essence, a down-and-dirty family drama. He’s complemented in his mission by a strong, tense, driving score from Junkie XL, which only pauses for the obligatory inclusion of The Pogues (it’s set at Christmas and features Irish-Americans, but one wonders how much the latter was due to Neeson’s involvement and how much the former sprang from a desire to include the band’s most famous song).

Neeson’s making it a Collet-Serra quadrilogy next, with The Commuter lining up for release (that’s Neeson, commutin’ and shootin’). I have no problem watching another of their collaborations; they’re far more fun than the Takens and, Collet-Serra’s a veritable Scorsese compared to the likes of Olivier Megaton, but there’s a nagging sense these two might actually makes something great together one day, if they made a pact to keep their peepers peeled for a really strong script.

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Mondo bizarro. No offence man, but you’re in way over your head.

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Isn’t it true, it’s easier to be a holy man on the top of a mountain?

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You have done well to keep so much hair, when so many’s after it.

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Schnell, you stinkers! Come on, raus!

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My Doggett would have called that crazy.

The X-Files 9.4: 4-D I get the impression no one much liked Agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), but I felt, for all the sub-Counsellor Troi, empath twiddling that dogged her characterisation, she was a mostly positive addition to the series’ last two years (of its main run). Undoubtedly, pairing her with Doggett, in anticipation of Gillian Anderson exiting just as David Duchovny had – you rewatch these seasons and you wonder where her head was at in hanging on – made for aggressively facile gender-swapped conflict positions on any given assignment. And generally, I’d have been more interested in seeing how two individuals sympathetic to the cause – her and Mulder – might have got on. Nevertheless, in an episode like 4-D you get her character, and Doggett’s, at probably their best mutual showing.

It’s not as if she were a… maniac, a raving thing.

Psycho (1960) (SPOILERS) One of cinema’s most feted and most studied texts, and for good reason. Even if the worthier and more literate psycho movie of that year is Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom . One effectively ended a prolific director’s career and the other made its maker more in demand than ever, even if he too would discover he had peaked with his populist fear flick. Pretty much all the criticism and praise of Psycho is entirely valid. It remains a marvellously effective low-budget shocker, one peppered with superb performances and masterful staging. It’s also fairly rudimentary in tone, character and psychology. But those negative elements remain irrelevant to its overall power.

You’re a disgrace, sir... Weren’t you at Harrow?

Our Man in Marrakesh aka Bang! Bang! You’re Dead (1966) (SPOILERS) I hadn’t seen this one in more than three decades, and I had in mind that it was a decent spy spoof, well populated with a selection of stalwart British character actors in supporting roles. Well, I had the last bit right. I wasn’t aware this came from the stable of producer Harry Alan Towers, less still of his pedigree, or lack thereof, as a sort of British Roger Corman (he tried his hand at Star Wars with The Shape of Things to Come and Conan the Barbarian with Gor , for example). More legitimately, if you wish to call it that, he was responsible for the Christopher Lee Fu Manchu flicks. Our Man in Marrakesh – riffing overtly on Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana in title – seems to have in mind the then popular spy genre and its burgeoning spoofs, but it’s unsure which it is; too lightweight to work as a thriller and too light on laughs to elicit a chuckle.

I tell you, it saw me! The hanged man’s asphyx saw me!

The Asphyx (1972) (SPOILERS) There was such a welter of British horror from the mid 60s to mid 70s, even leaving aside the Hammers and Amicuses, that it’s easy to lose track of them in the shuffle. This one, the sole directorial effort of Peter Newbrook (a cameraman for David Lean, then a cinematographer), has a strong premise and a decent cast, but it stumbles somewhat when it comes to taking that premise any place interesting. On the plus side, it largely eschews the grue. On the minus, directing clearly wasn’t Newbrook’s forte, and even aided by industry stalwart cinematographer Freddie Young (also a go-to for Lean), The Aspyhx is stylistically rather flat.

The best thing in the world for the inside of a man or a woman is the outside of a horse.

Marnie (1964) (SPOILERS) Hitch in a creative ditch. If you’ve read my Vertigo review, you’ll know I admired rather than really liked the picture many fete as his greatest work. Marnie is, in many ways, a redux, in the way De Palma kept repeating himself in the early 80s only significantly less delirious and… well, compelling. While Marnie succeeds in commanding the attention fitfully, it’s usually for the wrong reasons. And Hitch, digging his heels in as he strives to fashion a star against public disinterest – he failed to persuade Grace Kelly out of retirement for Marnie Rutland – comes entirely adrift with his leads.

You know what I sometimes wish? I sometimes wish I were ordinary like you. Ordinary and dead like all the others.

Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) (SPOILERS) Bryan Forbes’ adaptation of Mark McShane’s 1961’s novel has been much acclaimed. It boasts a distinctive storyline and effective performances from its leads, accompanied by effective black-and-white cinematography from Gerry Turpin and a suitably atmospheric score from John Barry. I’m not sure Forbes makes the most of the material, however, as he underlines Séance on a Wet Afternoon ’s inherently theatrical qualities at the expense of its filmic potential.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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