The Commuter

RATING: C

Remember when Liam Neeson wasn't being typecast as gruff ex-cop or maybe current cop types with "very particular sets of skills?" Yeah, me neither. Ever since the Taken trilogy started, Neeson has been getting cast in all kinds of action thrillers -- which typically involve him beating the snot out of random goons despite his age. 

This particular Liam Neeson film is actually his fourth collaboration with director Jaume Collet-Serra. Never heard of him? Well, he's been the main guy spitting out these various Liam Neeson action thrillers besides whoever's been doing the Taken trilogy. One of those films was "Unknown," which was basically a Bourne rip-off. The other two were Non-Stop and Run All Night, both of which I have yet to see (although I may give Non-Stop a whirl soon, just for kicks). Then there's this one. When I first saw the TV commercials for it, without watching the full trailer, I immediately thought, "It's just Taken, but with trains." And it was a January release. And pretty much all January releases stink, right? Well, maybe not totally. 

In this one, Liam Neeson's character is an insurance salesman who's... you guessed it... a former cop. At least until he gets fired from his job, anyway--at basically the worst time financially. Oh yeah, and the movie makes this big deal about how this character (Michael MacCauley) rides the same commuter train every day to and from work. So he's down in the dumps. And then he gets approached by some odd woman on the train... who offers him a heavy amount of cash if he can find a certain person on the train. And then suddenly he finds himself an unwitting party to a murder conspiracy. 

One might actually be surprised to find that this film does not involve as many scenes of Neeson beating up thugs as they'd expect. This film focuses more on the thriller end of things. There still is a fair share of them, though -- viewers gotta get their money's worth somehow. There is one particular awesome fight scene that stands out dramatically above anything else in the movie--because it involves Neeson, a thug, and a guitar. You do the math. 

Beyond that, this film is just alright. The pacing is a bit inconsistent--sometimes it moves fast, sometimes it moves slow. Sometimes it gives you surprises (and even a jump scare or two), and a couple of times it seems like they're just stalling, even though this movie is not that long. There is a pretty good climactic act. But there are parts of the attempt to solve the "mystery" that are just kind of annoying and feel a bit drawn-out (identifying the wrong person). 

The biggest problem, however, is that there is not fully proper closure. I mentioned earlier that there was a big murder conspiracy involved here. And while a lot of questions are answered in the final minutes, the biggest one of all is left unanswered: who the heck is this shadowy organization that set up this whole mess? We find out who the villains are, but even they are seemingly answering to something higher up--and we never find out who or what that is. Some TV reports at the end say some things, but they're deliberately blurred together so there's no definite answer. Surely they weren't expecting to make a sequel out of this, were they? That's kind of a massive hole. 

The Commuter isn't a bad film at all. As far as action thrillers go, it's decent enough--and fans of these kinds of films with Liam Neeson in them will probably want to give it a whirl. And while it's certainly tense at times, it doesn't always do enough to stand out from the crowd--and it doesn't help that there's a couple things that are never really explained (or even ones that are, but that just make no sense). The scene with the guitar alone might be worth the rental price. But that rental price is probably about as much as this film is worth--at best.