Run All Night

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra/Starring: Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, Joel Kinnaman, Boyd Holbrook, Bruce McGill, Vincent D'Onofrio, Common and Nick Nolte

Liam Neeson scans his never-too-old-to-play-Mr. Badass character and faxes it to theaters in director Jaume Collet-Serra's Run All Night. Watching the nonsense unfold on-screen left me struggling to recall a role where Neeson hasn't played a former CIA operative or cop who is nigh unstoppable as an avenging angel or a tough on the run who can beat the hell out of everything that isn't nailed down or in Collet-Serra's last film Non-Stop, an Air-Marshall with kick-butt credentials. But his character Jimmy Conlon in Run All Night is different from the last half dozen, leather-jacket clad heroes he's played. How? Well, in this film he...let's see...uh...wait a minute, I know: he doesn't wear a leather jacket. See...startling contrast, right?

Sarcasm aside, Neeson hasn't exactly been too discerning with his choice of roles the last decade. Is it entirely his fault? Are there many interesting roles for middle-age men these days? Given the fact that Pierce Brosnan, Denzel Washington, Neeson, Keanu Reeves and now Sean Penn have made or are set to release films featuring themselves playing aging action figures, the pickings must be alarmingly slim.

In Collet-Serra's film, Neeson plays not a cop or a former CIA agent, but a mob hit-man who is beggining to hear the creak of his advancing years. His boss, Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris) is an old friend from his youth. Maguire's hot-headed, impetuous son Danny (Boyd Holbrook) is the Sonny Corleone of the Maguire family.

In an early scene, Jimmy watches Danny dole out cash to two New York City cops. When Jimmy enters the office to borrow $800 for a home repair, Danny doesn't disguise his disdain when he says "I don't know why my dad keeps you around." And to further humiliate Jimmy, he makes it a condition that he play Santa Claus at his father's Christmas party. When Jimmy begs Danny to spare him the indignity, the offer becomes a take it or leave it proposition.

While Jimmy performs less than admirably as Santa at the party by drinking and making passes at a fellow mob member's wife, Danny is busy negotiating a drug deal with an Albanian drug lord. The Albanians want the Maguires to exert their influence on the dock unions to facilitate the shipping and receiving of their heroin.

After Danny organizes a meeting between his father and the Albanian, the elder Maguire informs the drug dealer that his business is legitimate, which leads to his firm and prompt dismissal from the premises. Question: if the Maguire business is indeed legitimate, then why the shake-down payments to the cops?

Events take a violent turn when the miffed Albanians come to collect advanced money from Danny. Coincidentally, the Albanians are driven to the meeting by Jimmy's estranged son Mike (Joel Kinnaman), who moonlights as a livery driver but is in no way connected to the underworld. The coincidence seems a bit much but it isn't a major transgression against plausibility.

After the Albanians forcefully demand their money, Danny responds in kind; brutally dispatching both Albanians. When Mike witnesses the murders, Danny gives chase and before he meets the same fate, Jimmy arrives to plug his boss/friend's son. Of course it isn't long before Maguire uses his far-reaching resources to discover (though erroneously) Mike was behind his son's murder. Recognizing the threat to his son, Jimmy meets with Maguire to petition for his life, only to be told he will come after Mike with everything he has, with the threat extended to Jimmy. So begins the hunt and evade plot that only becomes more ridiculous with every passing minute.

Naturally the movie is also about Jimmy reconciling with his son and assuaging Mike's anger for having left the family when he was young. We learn Jimmy left the family to spare them his rough and tumble way of life; a move he sees as some sort of compassionate gesture.

Taking place during one night (hence the title), it is fairly apparent where the story will go; the father and son play hide and seek with Maguire's thugs while protecting Mike's wife and children.

But Jimmy is no tulip; he manages to fight off and kill everyone on his trail until Maguire calls for another hitman named Andrew Price (Common) to finish off his nemesis.

Did I mention the stock character, Detective Harding (Vincent D'Onofrio), who has devoted part of his career to bringing down Jimmy for his prodigious body count, and who is also hot on his trail? In a strange and yet another comical plot development, Jimmy beseeches Harding for help in bringing down Maguire; offering up the list of men he's rubbed out as compensation.

Sillier and sillier the story becomes. Why Maguire would hire a purported crack assassin, who proves to be nothing more than a clumsy oaf with little cunning or finesse, is a perplexing conundrum.

Another eye-roller is the scene where Jimmy chases Maguire through a train-yard. The sequence is troubling for many reasons. The setting is such a action movie chestnut and doesn't add a crumb of suspense or tension to the story. As Jimmy and Maguire stalk one another around the yard, I wondered why didn't one or the other merely look under the carts to locate and shoot or wound his foe. And if Maguire was so enraged by his son's death that he was willing to kill his old friend and his son alike, while sacrificing nearly all his crew in the process, why does he run and hide from Jimmy at all? Why not stand his ground and avenge his son?

I didn't care much what happened to any of the characters, even Jimmy. I guess the screenplay deity presiding over this film demanded that every character adhere to time-honored cliches and not stray from a rigid story outline. I can't hold the cast responsible. At times, Harris and Neeson manage to free their lines from must have read as vacuous on the page. Harris can make a compelling bad guy if he's given solid dialogue and a character to work with. D'Onofrio and Nick Nolte are mostly wasted. It's almost as if both their characters were penned into the script after the final draft was submitted. Another talent wasted is the terrific character actor Bruce McGill, who is reduced to playing what must have read in the screenplay as Tough Guy #1.

Collet-Serra's directorial tic in his new film is the series of stylish, pull, pan and zoom shots that play throughout the film. The camera pulls up from one setting to an aerial shot of the city then pans to another location before zooming in on another. It's a gimmicky, visual quirk that becomes quickly irritating after it's employed a few times.

As the film wound down, I found myself often chuckling and sighing heavily at the nonsense on-screen until the mess mercifully ended.

I think President Obama should devote a State of the Union Address to Liam Neeson's career rut.

Please Mr. Neeson, I think you're a terrific, charismatic actor; no more tough guys with guns for awhile, okay? Give some other actors an opportunity to play these clowns for a change. Hollywood, I implore you too to cast against type in these roles. Why not let Lena Dunham play the badass for once? I know, it's dumb, but it could it be any worse?