By Geno McGahee
The two greatest action stars of all time were Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood. The DIRTY HARRY series and the DEATH WISH franchise defined the genre. The gritty, gun-carrying badass that didn’t need martial arts or explosives to bring his point home was a lost character until Liam Neeson became Bryan Mills in the 2008 action film “TAKEN.” That hit film made two statements. One, the fans were waiting for the next Eastwood or Bronson and two, Neeson became an A lister overnight.
Since TAKEN, Neeson has been on an action rampage with TAKEN 2, TAKEN 3, NON-STOP, A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES and the 2015 flick “RUN ALL NIGHT.” Neeson has developed the character and he has been cast accordingly. He is the broken hero, always hoping for redemption. In RUN ALL NIGHT, he’s a former mob hitman, Jimmy Conlon, with a drinking problem and plenty of skeletons in his closet.
The only person that seems to have any compassion for Conlon is his old boss, Shawn Maguire, played by the talented Ed Harris. Maguire shares the same pain and has many of the same ghosts haunting his soul, but he’s still got a role to play as the head of his group. Shawn’s biggest issue is his ambitious son, Danny (Boyd Holbrook). He has tried to set up a deal with some bad guys to do business with his father. When that goes poorly, Danny kills two of the gangsters, but is seen by Mike Conlon (Joel Kinnaman), the son of Jimmy. Now there’s a hit on Mike’s head and the only person that can save him is the man he hates the most, his father.
When Danny comes to take Mike out, Jimmy kills him, and the bond between he and Shawn is broken. Jimmy and Mike must run all night from the cops and from the mobsters to clear things up. Hot on their trail is Detective Harding (Vincent D’Onofrio), an investigator that has had Jimmy in his crosshairs for years. This is his chance to finally nail him.
Jimmy continues to protect his son, but the relationship is still broken badly. Mike wants nothing to do with him, but he sees him as the only way to survive. Crooked cops, mobsters and much of the city needs to be contended with and Jimmy realizes that to save his son he must take out Shawn and his entire gang, despite his mixed emotions about it. The final showdown between Shawn and Jimmy is very emotional and sad.
The film wraps up nicely with Jimmy finding some redemption and forgiveness and Mike understanding the sacrifices that his father had made. Neeson is such a sympathetic flawed hero that the hope was that he would find the ideal life and lose all of his baggage. It reminded me a great deal of the situation that Nick Nolte’s character was in in the movie WARRIOR. Coincidentally, Nick Nolte had a minor role in this and was incredibly captivating.
RUN ALL NIGHT has been released by Warner Bros. Pictures on Blu-Ray, DVD and digital. Liam Neeson shines brightly in this gritty action thriller, supported by an incredibly cast. The way that this movie is shot and edited gives it such great atmosphere and feel. The filmmakers did everything right. This is another great movie in the action run that Neeson is having. He is the new Charles Bronson.
Rating: 9/10
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