The Commuter. Directed by Jaume Collett-Serra. Starring Liam Neeson. Rating: 7 (out of 10)
Liam Neeson is officially an old-age pensioner, having reached the seasoned age of 65 last June.
That puts him in the company of Dan Ackroyd, Mr. T, Canadian actor Graham Greene, Republican presidential candidate John Kasich, and Vladimir Putin, none of whom could hope to kick butt the way Neeson continues to do onscreen. (Sorry, Vlad.)
The oldest Bond was 57 years old, though Roger Moore was lambasted by critics and fans alike for being too long in the tooth for the part. Why then are we so eager to accept that someone old enough to be a granddad could take on Albanian sex-traffickers, Spetsnaz forces, assassin teams, packs of wolves, a bomb aboard an airplane, drug dealers, the Irish mob and the White House, among other monsters?
Neeson makes his characters’ exploits believable thanks to his impressive physique, full head of hair and that reassuring, low growl of a voice that can, in turn, scare villains and then lull babies to sleep. He’s a soothing presence, because the guy cuts through the crap and gets stuff done. (Forget Oprah: Neeson for president!)
However, when we meet insurance salesman Michael MacCauley in The Commuter, he is considerably less assured than the Neeson incarnations we are used to. Michael is just another working stiff commuting home on his usual train, has just been unceremoniously laid off from his job, and is dreading telling his wife (Elizabeth McGovern) the bad news.
His financial woes are interrupted by a flirty, then steely, Vera Farmiga, who tells him he must find a specific passenger on the train and plant a tracking device on his/her bag. The good news? “They” will pay him $100,000. Bad news? They will kill his entire family if he refuses. (Poor Neeson’s fake-families: can they eat a meal without getting abducted?)
“Someone in this train does not belong. All you have to do is find them.”
After the shadowy “they” prove that they aren’t fooling around, Michael gets to work. Thankfully he’s no ordinary insurance salesman, he’s a former cop. Plus he’s been riding the same route for years and knows a few regulars, who may or may not be suspects (Jonathan Banks and Lady Macbeth’s Florence Pugh among them). Michael wanders the cars, finding reasons to strike up conversations and do a little psychological profiling while the stations race past and time runs out.
It’s like Murder on the Orient Express but without the white linen tablecloths, like Source Code (also starring Vera Farmiga – what’s this woman got with trains?) without the endless repeats. And yes, at a stretch, there are similarities to Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.
Spanish director Jaume Collett-Serra is a master of these sorts of seat-gripping thrillers, and Neeson is his man of choice, having utilized his particular set of skills in Unknown (2011), Non-Stop (2014) and Run all Night (2015).
Yes, the characterization is a little trim and the premise is more than a little silly when you sit and think about it. But thanks to the staid and savage presence of our senior action hero, we buy it. The action takes place almost in real time, which rachets up the tension, and things feel current thanks to a bonding moment or two for the shrinking middle class (Neeson’s character fires off an expletive on our behalf).
And despite the practical confines of a railcar, the cinematography is never dull. Collett-Serra and cinematographer Paul Cameron (Total Recall) find ever-novel places to shoot from, over, and through to keep things interesting.
Neeson has wrestled bad guys aboard planes, trains and automobiles, with no signs of tiring. That makes the prospect of a gaudy-Hawaiian-shirt clad Neeson trying to find and diffuse a bomb aboard a cruise ship a not entirely bizzare idea, and I’ll be there.
