Director Scott Frank brings us a very dry and gritty private investigator tale staring Liam Neeson, who always walks tall even if the rest of the movie is bad, and this one isn't bad at all. In Walk Among the Tombstones, Liam Neeson is truly in his element, backed up by a fantastic cast and story. Set in 1999, the movie has the feel of the classic 70's private investigator films. Nothing about the story is over-the-top or makes you feel like it could not have actually happened. The moral compass takes a serious beating as Neeson's character, Mathew Scudder, is torn between doing the right thing and doing the murderously satisfying thing.[Spoilers!] No one in this movie is without sin, except perhaps TJ played by Astro (Brian Bradley) and there is a wonderful scene where he tries. The story opens with Scudder in a shootout before he is employed by a drug dealer to investigate a murder and naturally almost everyone he talks to or questions is a part of the criminal underworld. Director Scott Frank manages to narrate a pair of villains however, that are so awful you can't help but feel sorry for everyone whose lives they touch. Despite an R rating, the most horrific of the violence is tastefully left off-camera keeping this from being a gorefest horror instead of a crime drama.
The violence, the fights, in this movie are realistic and unpredictable, and there are plenty of them. However, the hero doesn't kick down the door and mow down everyone in the room. You certainly get the feeling he knows what he is doing but he isn't always the victor in every situation. Scudder doesn't walk around armed all the time but there aren't rooms filled with machine gun toting goons prepared to die pretending they have a chance to kill the hero. Perhaps the most brilliant confrontation is the one with no violence at all.
Isolating a hero and justifying all the law breaking heroes do is difficult, even back in 1999 when a phone call can summon the police relatively quickly. Scott Frank does not shy away from the police in his movie and like everything else, Scudder ends up in a love-hate relationship with them. As the movie draws to a close we see what may be the most level-headed prisoner exchange ever. When everything goes pear shaped, as it almost must, it is in a far less clichéd manor than is typical. It was incredibly refreshing not to be able to guess the result. The movie closes with a series of bate-and-switch tactics which tries to leave the audience guessing how the final ending will pan out, but leaves too many telegraphing clues to what is still a solid finish and a brilliant aftermath.
As a final nod, the brilliance of this movie is in the details. Scudder bluffs that he knows the boss of a suspect Scudder is questioning. Neeson doesn't run, or look away or apologize. He just smiles and speaks with that slow tone he is famous for. "Ah, you're too smart for me." The interview is over, and ruined, but Scudder just soldiers on.
Mark Charke
www.Charke.ca
No comments:
Post a Comment