A Walk Among The Tombstones

I think we understood ever since 2008, if anyone of you mess with Liam Neeson, or any of his family members, be prepared to have 256 broken bones, and possible 56 bullets in your body, within the next 4 minutes. Liam Neeson is a bad ass man, and no one should ever mess with him. I have an idea, why not send Liam Neeson down to Ukraine and let him beat up russians ? Yeah, that sounds like a really great Fredagsmys. Taken became a huge box office hit in 2008, and you could easily understand why. It had all the great classic action ingredients you wanted, i could imagine he even made the ladies moist in the cinema seats. I think it is easy to forget that Liam Neeson have done some Amazing performances for many years, most of you must remember him in Schindler´s List, Darkman ( one of the greatest 90´s action films ), The Grey and many more titles. He is known for trying all kind of different genre motion Pictures and have proved himself to be a high quality actor. One film that i can imagine many people don´t remember is a film called Michael Collins, based on the irish patriot and revolutionary legend, was a interesting biogrophical film by director Neil Jordan. If you have not seen it, i recommend you should, it shows why Liam Neeson is such a great actor, to keep his irish roots alive on the big screen. Since Taken came out, we have seen quite many action films, and thrillers from Liam Neeson released. Some drama productions also of course, but he seems to know the audience like to see him be a hard macho man. A Walk Among The Tombstones seems to go outside that comfort zone, as Liam Neeson plays a private detective in a different character. Director Scott Frank is mostly known as a writer for films like Get Shorty, Out Of Sight and Minority Report. He did direct the 2007 thriller The Lookout, with a young Joseph Gordon-Lewitt. It became a boz office bomb, but some of the film critics enjoyed the story. Now he is back with a brand new film, and with Liam Neeson in the lead role, i was curious to see if we would get something unexpected. Is this walk among the tombstones a nice surprise in the thriller genre, or should the script have been buried underneath the tombstones ?

In Manhattan, 1991, Matthew Scudder an off-duty NYPD officer, sitting at a bar. Suddenly he is caught up in a robbery at the bar, and tries to hunt down the criminals Scudder shoot down both robbers, but by mistake one of the bullets hit a 4 year old girl, and kill her instantly. Scudder ends his police career, since he feel so much anger for what happened. 8 years pass by, and Scudder is working as an private detective instead. He still continue going to AA meetings, to make sure he never begin to drink again. One night, while having some food and coffee in a restaurant, Scudder is approached by a brother of a man named Kenny Kristo ( Dan Stevens ). He informs that drug kingpin Kenny Kristo wants to meet him. Not knowing why Kenny want to see him, he agrees to go and find out. Kenny tell Scrudder that his wife have been kidnapped, and even if he paid the ransom. the kidnappers killed his wife and cut her up into pieces. Kenny want the kidnappers dead, and he will pay Scrudder a good amount of money if he gets the job done. Scrudder needs the money so agree to take this case. At the local library, Scrudder tries to find out some information by local news papers, where he meet young adolescent named TJ ( Brian " Astro " Bradley ). Since Scudder is no good with technology, TJ helps him out. TJ becomes interested in Scrudder´s investigation, and decide to help him. After doing some research by informers, Scrudder finally have a name to follow up, Ray ( David Harbour ). Sources say he is most likely going to try and kindap another woman soon, so Scruddler needs to locate where Ray is, and make sure he will never harm anyone again.

I really enjoy a lot of releases from Liam Neeson, because he usually knows where he fits in, especially in action films or thrillers. A Walk Among The Tombstones is more of a crime thriller drama, that starts off quite good. Then, for quite a long time it becomes a very slow investigation. This is such a shame, because it is not Liam Neesons fault, he is the only reason why i found myself watching this detective story. Even if he is not as good as he can be, like in the first Taken film, he at least tries to make his character interesting. The biggest problem is that the case itself is not very interesting. Even if this is about a kidnapped woman, you never really feel disturbed about the case, and you should feel that knowing a woman is kidnapped. A lot of scenes are dragged out by interviews, and it feels like it does not help the investigation anyway, so i would rather see Liam Neeson kick ass once again. I understand why director Scott Frank choosed to cast Liam in a different kind of story, than we are used to see him in. I like the idea of seeing him as a private detective in a more dramatic role, he just don´t work very well in this lazy storyline. If you want to make the audience feel interested in a case, make sure they can feel the intensive search of the kidnapper. I just can´t feel that feeling here. In just a few scenes we do get some good action, but not enough to lift the story anywhere. I like the young man Brian " Astro " Bradley who decide to help Liam during his investigation, their scenes together are actually quite funny. Overall there is not much i can say i enjoyed with A Walk Among The Tombstones. It is good Liam Neeson tried to do a different character than the last films he made, but i think he would have needed another director in his hands to show his real acting quality. Not a waste of your time, but there are plenty of better choices if you want to see Liam Neeson do a different character. I suggest you rent The Grey instead.

Rating: DD