In 2008 Liam Neeson starred in the action-thriller Taken and inadvertently created an entire subgenre of action movies. Action films generally starred young actors, but with Neeson, who was in his 50s at the time, moviegoers saw that older actors could hold their own as well. Since then, we've seen numerous other actors try their hand at an "older man action movie," with varying results. However, Liam Neeson himself hasn't really stopped making these movies. In addition to a pair of Taken sequels the actor has made a number of additional action films, but it seems he's just about done with action films. Even Liam Neeson is getting too old.
Liam Neeson stars in the upcoming film The Marksman which is arriving today. After that, the actor recently told ET, that, after he completes a couple more films that he's already set to star in, he thinks he's probably done with action movies. Neeson is pushing 70 and he just thinks that, even though he's shown older man can still get it done with action movies, there's still a point where one can be too old, and he's probably almost there. Otherwise he'll be filming movies in a walker. According to Neeson...
Oh, yeah. I think so. I'm 68 and a half. 69 this year. There's a couple more I'm going to do this year -- hopefully, COVID allowing us -- there's a couple in the pipeline and, then I think that will probably be it. Well, unless I'm on a Zimmer frame or something.
Neeson is currently listed as starring in a pair of upcoming films, including The Ice Road, which will see Neeson's character leading a rescue mission in the frozen, remote regions of Canada, and Memory, which will cast the actor as a professional assassin who gets on the wrong side of a criminal organization. This latter film especially sounds like just the sort of movie one would watch in a marathon alongside Taken, Unknown, Non-Stop, and the numerous other similar films the actor has starred in over the last decade plus.
It's difficult to say that every one of these films has been great, but Liam Neeson is a charismatic actor who has carried each of them well and if even if not all of them are great, they're also not complete wastes of time. It will be unfortunate when when Neeson finally says goodbye to the genre. But it's not like he won't have anything else to do. Years before Liam Neeson was an action star he was celebrated for his worth in Oscar worthy dramas, and while an actor's career usually goes the other direction, it still has a future. Maybe he can start doing rom-coms?
