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Honest Thief

Liam Neeson has had quite an interesting career, hasn't he? The bloke's nearly 70 and in the last 12 years, he's peppered his CV with (mostly) meathead action fare. Yet early on he drifted more towards worthy or political dramas. Consider these disparate titles: The Mission, The Commuter, A Prayer for the Dying, A Walk Among the Tombstones, Schindler's List, The Grey, Rob Roy, Taken, Michael Collins, Taken 2. I could go on. If Matthew McConaughey has had his 'McConaissance', what do we call Neeson's latter-day path? A Neetrogression? Nah. Neeterioration? Hmmm. Maybe a simple Neescent? Let's go with that. [Copyright Oct 2020]. The thing is, he's a fine actor and a really likeable screen presence. So what's with all the dreck?

The above reads kind of like I'm trying to fill a word count. This is possibly due to the puddle that is Honest Thief. When I say puddle, I guess I mean it's shallow enough to be annoying but not so deep that your day would be ruined. Unstrangle that metaphucker! The premise of this film goes that a bank robber meets a woman and after a year, decides to turn himself in to the law and give back his loot. So far, so stretched. The wrinkle is that a jawbone of an FBI agent sees an angle here and tries to keep the dosh and cry crank re: Neeson. But Liam and his wounded expression are having none of that shit. "I will find you. And I will [cliché redacted]"

Here's a poser - why is this film here now? It was probably made on a mid-level budget (can't be more than $30 million?) with only Neeson and maybe Jai Courtney getting big bucks. Throw in some explosions, some car crashes. This would have been a straight to video boiler in the old days - now it's competing at the top of the box office. Is it purely the Covid desert landscape? It appears that in the top ten worldwide box office so far this year, only ONE film, Tenet, was released after March. A concern for cinema's future?

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Arguably, the best thing Neeson has done is a cameo on Warwick Davis, Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais's, Life's Too Short (TV 2011), but Neil Jordan's Michael Collins (1996) was a good example of his talent.

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