Movie Review: Tracks

Tracks
Directed by: John Curran.
Written by: Marion Nelson based on the book by Robyn Davidson.
Starring: Mia Wasikowska (Robyn), Adam Driver (Rick), Robert Coleby (Pop), Roly Mintuma (Mr. Eddy).

When you hear the basic outline for Tracks – a young woman walks across the Australian outback by herself – with only a few camels and her dog – you probably think that what you`re in for is a journey to self-discovery – especially when you hear the movie is based on a true story. Based solely on the preview, and a few reviews, I assume that the upcoming film Wild, with Reese Witherspoon, will deliver on that front – a film filled with flashbacks that illuminate the characters life, and why they decided to go on the journey in the first place. But Tracks is a more difficult film in that it doesn’t fall into that basic outline. Yes, there are some flashbacks in it (and to be honest, I would have preferred if there were none), but they do not shed too much light on why Robyn Davidson (Mia Wasikowska) went on her journey back in 1975. In voiceover, she does say that she is tired of being treated a certain way because of her `gender and class` but the movie doesn’t delve too deeply into that either. Neither is this really a spiritual journey – or even a woman getting back to nature film. It seems like Davidson simply went on her journey to get away from people – to be alone.  Whatever she learned from that journey, she keeps to herself.

Directed by John Curran, Tracks is a beautiful film in many ways, and a harsh one in many others. The Outback is unforgiving, and as the movie goes along, Wasikowska gets dirtier, and her skin gets sunburned and chapped. She faces difficult tasks and challenges – and even heartbreak – but she simply keeps going. The only other major character in the film is Rick (Adam Driver) a photographer for National Geographic, who the magazine insists on shooting photos of Davidson on her journey as a condition for underwriting the trip. He`s a little goofy and charming – and clearly likes Davidson – but the romantic relationship we expect doesn’t really develop between the two of them (apart from one scene, which is a one off).

This is the fourth film by Curran I have seen, and like the other three (the infidelity drama We Don’t Live Here Anymore, the Far East costume drama The Painted Veil, the psychological thriller Stone), Curran doesn’t give in to the stories more obvious trapping – and doesn’t go in the same direction. Like all of his films, I fear that some will find Tracks a little slow – and to be honest, it does move slowly at times – but the effect of making these films quieter than most is that they dig a little deeper. The movie asks a lot of Wasikowska – she is basically a character who keeps everyone, including the audience, at arm’s length – but the talented young actress delivers a wonderful physical performance. She has already been great in two other movies this year – The Double and Only Lovers Left Alive – and when combined with this film, she has deliver three great, completely different performance in a row (and she still has Maps to the Stars directed by David Cronenberg coming out later this year). She has become one of the best actresses in the world in a short period of time.

Tracks perhaps keeps the audience a little too far away from its central character. She is an interesting person, but she remains more of an enigma than anything else. I wanted a little bit more from the movie. But that would have been a different movie – than Tracks, and not necessarily a better one. Perhaps keeping the central character so unknowable will make Tracks all the more memorable – the type of film that grows in your mind after you’ve seen it.

Movie Review: The Lunchbox

The Lunchbox
Directed by: Ritesh Batra.
Written by: Ritesh Batra.
Starring: Irrfan Khan (Saajan Fernandes), Nimrat Kaur (Ila), Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Shaikh), Lillete Dubey (Ila's Mother), Nakul Vaid (Rajeev), Bharati Achrekar (Auntie), Yashvi Puneet Nagar (Yashvi), Denzil Smith (Mr. Shroff), Shruti Bapna (Mehrunnisa).

The Lunchbox could have easily devolved into a typical romantic comedy or an easy melodrama. The setup – that the famed lunchbox delivery system in Mumbai makes what we are told is the first mistake ever mixing up the meals delivered by a mediocre restaurant to an office drone on the verge of retirement, with the delicious home cooked meal by a stay-at-home mother, whose husband pretty much ignores her, and when the two realize the mix-up, they do not report it, but start exchanging letters through the lunchbox, slowly getting to know each other and falling in love – could have easily been made into a romantic drama as silly as The Lake House, or a romantic comedy as predictable as You’ve Got Mail. But the writer-director, Ritesh Batra, making his debut, is not really interested in making either of those films. His film is quieter and more introspective than that – and a good deal sadder than that, but not in a tearjerker type of way.

The office drone is Saajan Fernandes (Irrfan Khan) who is a month away from retirement. Like all, boring office drones in movies, he is an accountant who works in the claims department, and all he wants to do is be left alone to do his work – so he can go home at night to his empty apartment and smoke. He is a widower, and no one much likes him – and he doesn’t much care. He is given a comic foil early in the film when his boss announces that Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) will be taking over his job when he retires – and once Saajan to train him. Saajan does everything he can to avoid doing that – but after some time communicating through the lunchbox, and learning that Shaikh is a poor orphan who has had to fight for everything in his life, he changes his mind and takes the younger man under his wing.

The mother is Ila (Nimrat Kaur)   - who works hard on the daily meals she makes for her husband – communicating with her Auntie, who lives in the apartment above her, mixing the exact spices for him. He works long hours, and when he is home, he`s always on the phone and ignores her, and their daughter. When she starts writing to Saajan, she doesn’t know anything about him – but starts telling him things she wouldn’t tell anyone else. By communicating with him, she starts to see the life she wants for herself. And the same is true for Saajan. There are separated by years in age – but in some ways want the same thing. Not a passionate love affair, but something calmer – just someone to talk to.

The movie doesn’t completely avoid the sentimentality in its premise – there is really no way around it. Some of the homespun wisdom the two share is basically maudlin clichés that only work because they are delivered so sensitively in the voiceovers of the two actors, and because Batra shoots the montages of those voiceovers so beautifully.

While the movie does a great job at showing day-to-day life in Mumbai – where everyone is busy, where long commutes are normal, where you are constantly surrounded by people, and yet completely alone – but its message is universal (couldn’t you write that same sentence about workers in New York or Toronto – or any major city).

The ending of the film is perhaps the only one that would make sense given everything that has come before it. The two people don’t really love each other – they barely know each other – but through their communications they get to know themselves better than before. Yes, that`s a cliché – as is much of the rest of The Lunchbox. But in this movie, the cliché works.

Movie Review: The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner
Directed by: Wes Ball.
Written by: Noah Oppenheim and Grant Pierce Myers and T.S. Nowlin based on the novel by James Dashner.
Starring: Dylan O'Brien (Thomas), Aml Ameen (Alby), Ki Hong Lee (Minho), Blake Cooper (Chuck), Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Newt), Will Poulter (Gally), Dexter Darden  (Frypan), Kaya Scodelario (Teresa), Chris Sheffield (Ben), Joe Adler (Zart), Alexander Flores (Winston), Jacob Latimore (Jeff), Randall D. Cunningham (Clint), Patricia Clarkson (Ava Paige).

The success of the Twilight, Hunger Games and Divergent movies have ensured that for the next few years anyway, we will see a steady stream of young adult novels make their way to the bigscreen – preferably ones about dystopian societies in which the evil adults try to tell the teenagers what to do, and the heroic teenagers fight back. Its not hard to see why teenagers respond to these novels – and the movies based on them – because they pretty much feel that adults are out to run their lives anyway, and do not understand whats its like for them. Some of these movies – like The Hunger Games – have actually been quite good, but others – like Divergent – have been pretty much horrible. The latest, The Maze Runner, falls somewhere in between. Like the books its based on – and I’ve only read the first installment – it is somewhat frustrating as that even at the end of the first book (and this movie) the audience still doesn’t really know what the hell is going on. As such, the movie almost plays like a pilot episode of a TV series, that sets up a bunch of mysteries that will presumably be resolved at some later date. TV shows can do that – with movies, it feels like kind of a ripoff.

The movie opens with our hero, Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) inside an elevator of some sort, moving upwards. He has no idea where he is, why he’s there, or even what his name is. When he arrives at his destination – he’s surrounded by a bunch of boys around his same age (presumably, teenagers, even though most of them look to be in their mid-20s). The groups leader – Alby (Aml Ameen) gives him the lay of the land. They’re in the “Glade” – and they have no idea why, or who put them there. Once a month, the elevator arrives with a new boy and supplies. Everyone in the Glade has a job – they have no room for freeloaders – they are expected to do what they’re told. They have so far found no way out – although everyday they do send “runners” into the large, stone maze at the edge of the Glade, which they assume will be their only way out. Inside that maze are creatures known as “Grievers” – who will kill you if they get the chance. Only runners are allowed inside the maze – and no one can survive inside the maze overnight – at sundown the maze’s doors close, and reopen the next day at sunrise.

Thomas eventually remembers his name – but he also has a few bits and pieces of his memory before his time in the Glade – which no one else seems to have. He is convinced that he needs to go into the Maze – and if he does, he’s convinced he’ll be able to figure out how to get himself, and everyone else, out. He makes some friends – including Chuck (Blake Cooper), the youngest Glader, who worships Thomas, and Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) whose main role in the movie is to explain everything to Thomas – and by extension the audience. He also runs afoul of Gally (Will Poulter) – who just wants everything to stay the same – and sees Thomas as a threat to that – something that for Gally is confirmed when the elevator arrives again – much earlier than anticipated – with no supplies, but for the first time ever a girl (Kaya Scodelario), who says Thomas’ name before dropping into a coma, and has a note saying “She’s the last one EVER!”. To Thomas, this means he has to work harder than ever to get them out – to Gally, it means he has to do whatever it takes to keep the rest of the boys in the Glade.

As a movie, The Maze Runner is somewhat frustrating. It spends so much time setting up the Glade, the rules, the various boys and everything else, that the film barely has time to tell a story. The characters are defined in the broadest strokes possible – with everyone seemingly given one character trait, and that’s about it.

I will say that as frustrating of a movie as it as storytelling, the movie generally looks very good. Director Wes Ball, making his debut, has a background in special effects – and yet he doesn’t overdo the CGI. The Glade itself is all practical – an actual set, which is becoming an increasing rarity in movies of this size. The special effects – most notably the Grievers themselves – are well done – even if, for the millionth time, they seem to be another movie monster based on the iconic aliens in Alien and its sequels.

Perhaps The Maze Runner series will get better as it moves along – after a decent opening weekend, they’ve already announced the sequel will come next year. As a movie unto itself, The Maze Runner doesn’t really work – it’s all setup and little payoff. But it does have an interesting hook – so while I cannot say I really liked this movie, I’ll most likely be back for the sequel.

Movie Review: Frank

Frank
Directed by: Lenny Abrahamson.
Written by: Jon Ronson & Peter Straughan.
Starring: Michael Fassbender  (Frank), Domhnall Gleeson (Jon Burroughs), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Clara), Scoot McNairy (Don), François Civil (Baraque), Carla Azar (Nana), Hayley Derryberry (Simone), Lauren Poole (Alice), Tess Harper (Frank's Mom), Bruce McIntosh (Frank's Dad).

There is a myth that great artists must suffer to achieve their art – a myth that is perpetuated by many works of art about artists. Think of almost any biopic of a great artist or musician, and you’ll most likely find a story about mental illness, abuse, poverty, drug addiction, etc. There is also another myth – that everyone has something of interest to say, some talent in them waiting to get out, and that if you just want it enough, and just work hard enough, you can achieve anything. But sometimes that just isn’t true – mental illness, abuse, poverty and drug addiction do not really fuel creativity – they hinder it. And not everyone has something of value to add to the whole wide world – no matter how much they want it. These are the basic themes behind Frank, and they are harsh truths that must movies do not acknowledge. Yet, I think the movie somewhat undercuts its rather harsh message by disguising it all as a quirky comedy, that doesn’t dig into its characters, or its themes, quite deep enough. The movie simply skims the surface of its darker themes – although it must be said that it is a rather pleasant surface.

The stars Domhnall Gleeson as Jon – a 20-something British office drone, who fancies himself a musician – although the songs we hear him trying to compose in the film’s opening scenes are quite simply awful. One day, he sees an odd thing happening at the beach – a man trying to drown himself, while the paramedics try to haul him out, and a van of onlookers stand by. They are a band – and he was their keyboardist, and has gone crazy, leaving them a man short for their shown that night. “I can play keyboards”, Jon volunteers – and just like that a strange journey begins. The lead singer in the band is Frank (Michael Fassbender) who wears a giant paper mache head everywhere he goes. The rest of the band think he’s a genius – and soon they’ll all holed up at a cabin in the middle of nowhere Ireland “recording” their new album. Jon is won over by Frank – but the rest of the band, including Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal) hate his guts. His only real ally is Don (Scoot McNairy) – the band’s manager.

As the movie moves along, it becomes clear that Frank is not just “eccentric”, but is actually suffering from some sort of serious mental illness. The band is really just his enablers – they allow him to dictate everything they do, which doesn’t include very much actual recording of music for months on end. And Jon simply envies Frank – figuring he must have suffered throughout his life to make him the genius that he is. The music we do hear – and we don’t hear nearly enough of it in the movie – is a strange psychedelic, electronic growl, with impenetrable lyrics – that I actually quite liked, but is clearly not made for mass consumption. But Jon thinks the band can actually be popular – they should just write more “likable” songs. While at first, his bandmates hostility towards him seems unfounded – he really may as damaging to Frank that they think they are. When they finally leave Ireland – and head to Austin, Texas for South by Southwest, the movie takes a darker turn.

There is a lot to like about Frank – from the music, to Fassbender’s fully committed performance behind a paper mache head, which somehow does not prevent him from creating the most fully realized character in the film. Gleeson is also quite good as the delusional Jon – who cannot see himself, or really anything around him, clearly. These two characters are the heart of the film – the rest of the cast isn’t really given much to do, even talented actors like McNairy and Gyllenhaal are basically wasted – and they represent the dual themes mentioned above.

But I don’t think director Lenny Abrahamson is quite able to navigate the story’s dark turn as it moves along. The score is distracting – overly cute, quirky indie score, which is at odds with the music that Frank and his band produces. And the last act feels like it should be much darker than the tone of the film that he actually achieves. There is real stuff going on beneath the surface here – but the film pulls some punches. It must be said though that the final scene in the movie is probably the best – and the most moving – in the film.

I wanted to like Frank more than I actually did. I think there is a lot of interesting stuff going on beneath the surface of the film – but I don’t think the movie quite knows how to handle it. The film is more serious, and darker than I assumed a film about a man in a giant paper mache head would be – but had it fully embraced its darker themes, it could have been great, instead of average.

Movie Review: Neighbors

Neighbors
Directed by: Nicholas Stoller.
Written by: Andrew J. Cohen & Brendan O'Brien.
Starring: Seth Rogen (Mac Radner), Rose Byrne (Kelly Radner), Zac Efron (Teddy Sanders), Dave Franco (Pete), Ike Barinholtz (Jimmy), Carla Gallo (Paula), Brian Huskey (Bill Wazowkowski), Halston Sage (Brooke), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Scoonie), Jerrod Carmichael (Garf), Craig Roberts (Assjuice), Lisa Kudrow (Dean Carol Gladstone). 

It’s been nine years since Judd Apatow's The 40 Year Old Virgin came out and introduced a number of comedies about grown men still acting like teenagers, who eventually start to grow up with the help of a perfect woman. Some of those comedies are hilarious, but over the years they’ve started to grow a little stale. It may not have been the best career move for Katherine Heigl to badmouth Knocked Up – the one film of her career audiences generally liked – but she wasn’t necessarily wrong to suggest that the women in these movies are not nearly as well defined as the men. Neighbors strikes me somewhat as a missed opportunity on that front – here for the first time, the best, most well defined character in the film is a woman – played wonderfully by Rose Byrne – and yet the movie spends so much time with juvenile males playing juvenile pranks on each other, that Byrne is too often shunted to the background. I would have gladly watched an entire movie centered on Byrnes character – instead I spent far too much time watching Seth Rogen and Zac Efron acting like idiots.

The film is about a married couple with a 6 month old daughter. Mac (Rogen) and Kelly (Byrne) still view themselves as young and cool, but are facing the reality of all first time parents that they are no longer that version of themselves – they have entered a new phase of their lives that will eventually end with them becoming their parents – which is the last thing they want to be. They are forced to face this fact when a fraternity moves into the house next door, after burning down their last house. Mac and Kelly want to appear cool to these kids – even going so far as to party with the frat on their first night in the house. But soon the parties grow louder, and all they want is to be able to sleep – and to keep their baby sleeping. When they call the cops to complain about the noise one night, they set off a war between themselves and the fraternity’s leader – Teddy (Efron) – a senior who wants nothing more to be a legend in the frats history. He's slowly starting to realize that soon he will be out in the real world and his brothers – like Pete (Dave Franco) will move onto the real world, while Teddy, who barely attends class, will be left behind.

There are seeds of good ideas in Neighbors. There are not a lot of movies about young parents dealing with the fact that their youth is over, and now they have to be responsible parents. There are even fewer movies about college life where the students have to have to deal with the fact that they have to grow up as well. A good movie could mine this material to make a smart comedy about these two crossroads in people's lives.

Unfortunately, Neighbors doesn’t seem too interested in exploring these transitions. Instead, the film simply devolves into a series of pranks and counter-pranks between the frat and the parents. The movie twists itself into knots to ensure that Mac and Kelly have nowhere to go with their complaints (which isn’t remotely realistic) – but it’s one of those things you simply have to accept and move on. Some of the pranks are actually kind of funny – but for the most part, I didn’t really laugh out loud at any moments in Neighbors – although it did induce more than a few smiles. Rogen is essentially playing his typical self, although his slight move towards maturity is welcome, even if he’s not too much more mature. Efron continues his quest to try and do something other than his typical teen idol stuff – and shows he has the goods, even if the movie doesn’t much use him as well as it could.

Best of all is Byrne, who is the only person in the movie playing something resembling a realistic person. Her character allows her to get down and dirty with the boys – which is a nice change from what I would normally assume would be a nagging wife role (where she’s stuck complaining about Rogen's need to grow up) – but even when she does the juvenile stuff, it seems to be coming from a more realistic place. I could have done without what is one of the movies biggest laughs – the boobspolition if you will – essentially because I didn’t find it very funny, although Byrne is game for that too.

To me, I think Neighbors represents at least a slight move in the right direction for Rogen, director Stoller and the Judd Apatow era of comedy movies in generally – finally acknowledging that eventually everyone has to grow up. Unfortunately, the movie gets bogged down in the juvenile crap, and shunts everything interesting about the movie off to the side.

Movie Review: God's Pocket

God’s Pocket
Directed by: John Slattery.
Written by: Alex Metcalf & John Slattery based on the novel by Peter Dexter.
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Mickey Scarpato), Christina Hendricks (Jeanie Scarpato), John Turturro (Arthur 'Bird' Capezio), Richard Jenkins (Richard Shellburn), Eddie Marsan (Smilin' Jack Moran), Caleb Landry Jones (Leon Hubbard), Molly Price (Joanie), Pete Gerety (McKenna), Sophia Takal (Temple Graduate).

I have a feeling that I would have liked Gods Pocket a little bit more had I not just seen The Drop the day before. Both films take place in working class neighborhoods in New York, where the workers and criminal life stand side by side, and sometimes overlap. The Drop does an excellent job at establishing the neighborhood and the characters in it – and also tells a great story, that slowly sneaks up on you. Gods Pocket tries to do the same thing – but doesn’t come close to be as effective. It has a great cast, but it pretty much wastes it. It has almost no story whatsoever. And as a portrait of this very specific neighborhood, it never quite comes off.

What little story there is in Gods Pocket is about the death of Leon Hubbard (Caleb Landry Jones) – a young, loudmouthed asshole, who starts spouting racist crap on the job site directed at an aging African American worker – who responds by hitting him in the head, killing him. The rest of the workers decide to say it was an accident – no one liked the kid anyway, and why ruin their fellow workers life. Leon’s mother, Jeanie (Christina Hendricks) doesn’t believe the story she is told, and asks her husband Mickey (Philip Seymour Hoffman) – who is not Leon’s father, and not even from Gods Pocket originally – to find out what happened. He, in turn, reaches out to another friend – Bird (John Turturro) – who reaches out to his criminal connections. In addition, Mickey has to come up with money to bury Leon – especially since the local undertaker (Eddie Marsan) isn’t willing to put anything on layaway. And then there’s an aging, alcoholic reporter (Richard Jenkins) who writes about the neighborhood in poetic, almost romantic language – even if he himself is more than a little bit of an asshole.

That may sound that there is lot going on in Gods Pocket, but there really isn’t much here. The movie moves at a snail’s pace, and essentially has the characters going in circles throughout. The main character here is Hoffman’s Mickey – and it’s another fine performance by the late actor, but even he isn’t able to salvage what is an underwritten role. And if he's underwritten, then he rest of the cast is even worse off – not even given the depth that Mickey has. Essentially, all of the characters in the movie start off miserable, and end up even more so.

The film is the directorial debut of actor John Slattery (Mad Men). To give credit where due, unlike many actor turned directors, Slattery is not just looking on making an actor’s showcase here – in fact, I don’t think he’s interested in making an actor’s showcase at all, given how subdued all the performances in the film are. Instead, what he is attempting to do is to give a complete portrait of this miserable neighborhood. He partly succeeds, but not enough – the neighborhood itself doesn’t become the "character" he wants it to be. Instead, he just makes everything grim and drab – and the few moments outside the neighborhood a little more colorful to show the contrast – but it doesn’t quite work.

There are moments here that work – and the cast gamely tries to breathe some life in the film. But it basically remains a grim, drab, dull film of grim, drab, dull people, living in a grim, drab, dull neighborhood. There is nothing here to hold my interest throughout. It’s an honorable first effort behind the camera by Slattery – but one that just never quite delivers.

Movie Review: A Walk Among the Tombstones

A Walk Among the Tombstones
Directed by: Scott Frank.
Written by: Scott Frank based on the novel by Lawrence Block.
Starring: Liam Neeson (Matt Scudder), Dan Stevens (Kenny Kristo), Brian 'Astro' Bradley (TJ), Boyd Holbrook (Peter), David Harbour (Ray), Adam David Thompson (Albert), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (James Loogan), Mark Consuelos (Reuben Quintana), Sebastian Roché (Yuri Landau), Danielle Rose Russell (Lucia).

Liam Neeson's unlikely, late career transformation into an action star has certainly been good for his wallet – but hasn’t really offered the actor much in the way of interesting roles. His work in films like Taken (and its sequel) as well as Unknown and Non-Stop have all delivered audiences some silly action, but none are all that memorable. His best work in recent years was in Joe Carnahan`s The Grey – an unlikely survival tale of man vs. wolf that was a whole lot better than it made it seem. Watching the trailers for A Walk Among the Tombstones, you could be forgiven in thinking that this was another Neeson action movie where he uses his `very special skills` to track down and kill evildoers. But A Walk Among the Tombstones is much better than that – much deeper and darker and less dependent on action. After an opening shootout, Neeson`s Matt Scudder pretty much leaves his guns at home for most of the rest of the movie. He has killed before, and isn’t interested in doing so again. Written for the screen and directed by the talented Scott Frank (screenwriter of Get Shorty and Out of Sight, and writer-director of the hugely underrated The Lookout) – A Walk Among the Tombstones is much more a throwback to the adult thrillers, and detective noirs of the 1970s. It devolves a little near the end, getting uglier than is really necessary, and for a movie that is about the deaths of many women at the hands of sadistic men, the film could certainly have used a living female character. But overall, A Walk Among the Tombstones is a far better film that it seems like in the trailers.

In the film, Neeson plays Matt Scudder, a former NY City detective who after that shootout that opens the film quits his job, and quits drinking. Now he’s an unlicensed P.I. – which, in his words, means sometimes he does favors for people, and they give him gifts in return. His latest case starts when he meets Peter (Boyd Holbrook) – a junkie – who wants him to meet with his brother Kenny (Dan Stevens) a drug dealer. Kenny`s wife was kidnapped the previous week, and the kidnappers demanded $1 million for her safe return – although he negotiated them down to $400K. He pays the money – but the kidnappers kill his wife anyway. Kenny wants Scudder to find the men who did this, and bring them to him – at first Scudder refuses, but you know how this will go. Scudder is an old school detective – he doesn’t much care about the upcoming Y2K crisis, and when he goes to the library to do research, he still uses microfiche. It’s while at the library, he meets TJ (Brian Astro Bradley) – a homeless, African-American teenager who wants to become Scudders sidekick – and can help him do some of the more technologically advanced research. Soon, Scudder figures out that Kenny’s wife was hardly the first woman to go missing in the same way – and he starts to close in on who is responsible.

A Walk Among the Tombstones is mainly an old school detective yarn – the film mentions both Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe – and Scudder is similarly a man with principles in a world where no one else seems to have any. After the opening shootout, there is not very much action until the blood soaked finale. In its place, is Scudder pounding the pavement, interviewing an assortment of lowlifes, and slowly getting closer to the two psychopaths who are killing these women.

Frank is a talented director, and an even better writer. Adapting Lawrence Block`s novel (unread by me), he gives the dialogue a nice, hardboiled quality – and if there is one thing Neeson can do well, it’s deliver hardboiled dialogue. He's in nearly every scene in the movie, and he anchors the film. The film is more interested in Scudder than even its plot – and certainly more so than the action, as Frank even undercuts the finale by using some interesting flashbacks during it. The film takes a number of very dark turns, but for all the sadism in the film, Frank doesn’t show very much actual violence – allowing the audience to fill in the gaps.

The movie has its share of problems. For one thing, I am getting a little tired of TV shows and movies where there are more dead women in the film than live ones – and that’s certainly the case here, as none of the numerous female victims have any real screen time, and the film has no other women who leave an impact. I also think Frank may be reaching a little when he tries to make some statements larger than the movie itself – including the film’s final shot, which seems out of place given what else has happened in the movie.

But overall, A Walk Among the Tombstones is the kind of detective mystery for adults that I had thought Hollywood had forgotten how to make – and the type of film that I had assumed Neeson was not interested in making. It’s more realistic than anything he’s starred in for a while – and a hell of lot better.