Great news for Liam Neeson fans. He going to star in a new movie where he’s going to be unwittingly caught up in a conspiracy that threatens the lives of himself and the people he loves. Doesn’t that sound like an amazing premise? What’s wrong? You don’t look impressed. Ok, we admit, it sounds an awful lot like one or two... or six, of his other most-recent films. This one is different though, it’s going to take place during an incredibly exciting time period. The afternoon commute. Nevermind.
The Commuter will be the next film from the team of Liam Neeson and director Jaume Collet-Serra. The two previously worked together on a couple of Neeson’s other action thrillers, Non-Stop and Unknown. It will be Serra’s next film as director which likely means we’ll see it sooner rather than later. The plot synopsis provided by Deadline doesn’t give us much to go beyond what we’ve already said. Neeson will play the titular commuter who somehow gets involved in a criminal conspiracy on his way home from work. We’re betting somebody in Neeson’s carpool is actually a hired assassin. If the entire movie takes place in an Econovan, we’re sold.
Ever since the breakout success of 2009’s Taken, Liam Neeson has made a collection of very similar films. Overall they tend to be successful, they’re not particularly expensive to produce so profitability isn’t an issue, and Neeson seems to enjoy doing them, thus they continue to be churned out. For what it’s worth, The Commuter may be one of the last movies like this that Neeson does. About a year ago the 63-year-old actor said he probably only had a couple of years of action left in him. If he stays true to that commitment, then he only has a year left before throwing in the towel so this one could be the swan song.
It’s probably a good thing if things are beginning to wrap up, as it appears they have run out of titles for these movies. We’re not going to judge the film’s overall potential quality based solely on the title, but the title The Commuter is not good. We don’t ask for a lot out of our Liam Neeson action movies, but we can already tell that the premise of this one is going to be thin. Not so thin that we won’t see it. Let’s not get crazy. We also have a good idea who else will be going to see this with us.
Do you go see all of Liam Neeson’s action thrillers or have you had about as much of them as you can take? Let us know your thoughts below.
