There was a time when the name Liam Neeson was synonymous with high caliber dramatic films and period pieces, movies like Schindler's List, Michael Collins, and Rob Roy. However, these days Neeson spends much more time making "one man versus an army" action movies. His most recent in the genre was 2018's The Commuter, and now he's heading back in to make yet another with a new film called The Minuteman.
The new movie will see Liam Neeson as a retired Vietnam veteran who finds himself protecting a young boy that's being hunted by a cartel. The project will be directed by Robert Lorenz, a longtime producing partner of Clint Eastwood, who previously directed Eastwood's Trouble with the Curve.
Liam Neeson starred in Taken back in 2008 and the movie was such a huge hit that it not only spawned a pair of sequels, but also an entire new genre for Neeson to get involved in. While none of Neeson's action films have been able to quite replicate the success of the original taken, the films' modest budgets tend to mean that they do well enough at the box office even that if they don't break the bank, they are still considered successful.
Liam Neeson is 66 years old and as such he wouldn't necessarily be your first thought when it comes to major action heroes, but it really can't be argued that he''s able to make it work. He's somehow believable even at that age, something not everybody can pull off.
Even Neeson himself has said that eventually he feels like audiences will stop buying him in the role of action star at some point, but he seems to enjoy making the movies and that means he'll continue to make them until he stops getting the roles.
It should also be said that at least part of the reason Liam Neeson seems to be getting so many of these roles is that he has more success with them than others. Other aging actors from Mel Gibson to Sean Penn have tried their hands at the older action hero genre, but none have done as well with it as Neeson.
Details on The Minuteman are light from THR, but it seems certain that Liam Neeson will be beating the hell out of cartel members for most of the runtime. The lack of detail means it's impossible to tell if there's much to set this story apart or if it will be just another film like Non-Stop or A Walk Among the Tombstones, that have already been largely forgotten among the litany of action films Neeson has made in recent years.
Still, if you're a fan of action star Liam Neeson, the fact that another project is on the way is good news however you look at it.
