Since 2009's Taken, the words "Liam Neeson dark-revenge-action-thriller" have become both ubiquitous and a running joke among audiences. But the sixty-odd year old Irishman's latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, takes this recent bankable action-star power of Neeson and breaks convention through adherence to an old formula, which actually results in both a good performance from Neeson, and a solid film. Based off of the tenth in what is so far seventeen novels by Lawrence Block about an alcoholic cop-turned-private-investigator, Matthew Scudder, and being both written and directed by Scott Park (writer of Minority Report, The Wolverine and Marley and Me), the film opens with a stylised armed robbery being foiled by a badass, grizzled, hairy Neeson in early 90's New York. The plot then jumps eight years forward with a clean shaven Scudder being summoned to a drug traffickers home to solve the mystery of the man's kidnapped wife Soon, Scudder is on the trail of the sick and twisted kidnapping murderers, and employing a young, savvy teenager as his associate, played by Brian "Astro" Bradley a finalist on the American X--Factor talent show. What follows is a simple, dark and formulaic investigation, though from behind the other side of the law.
Walk Among the Tombstones breaks little to no new ground, but what it does deliver is a solid detective story. Neeson, while not quite in form, fully commits to this role, and for the first time in a while (excluding his cameo in the Ricky Gervais/Stephan Merchant/Warwick Davis show Life's Too Short) he is not sleepwalking through this role. He commits so much that when the film inevitably takes a gulp from the Taken well, as in Neeson answering a phone and taking command of the call with his gravelly voice, it actually fits into the story, becoming a real moment in the film instead of just capitalising on a part of popular culture for the sake of marketing.
The film itself falls into a certain style early on, settling into a calm, disturbing quietness for the most part that is interrupted by a dark score. Much of the early film is shot in static tripod shots and interesting angles that focus on characters, as well as a distinct lack of weaponry, which all seems to serve the film and its classic detective style nicely. Handheld, pans, dolly's and gunplay begin to appear in the late second act, as Scudder's understanding and morality comes under fire. Overall. it's making the old new, but not too new so as to ruin the feel of the old.This film exists somewhere between the iconic Clint Eastwood-starring Dirty Harry and the recent Tom Cruise vehicle also based off of a successful series of books, Jack Reacher. And like the latter, it has little to no business being as good as it is.
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