Cinemavenger

   The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.

The Commuter

First off, this week's Fuck You You Fucking Fucks! award goes to the Mormon church for pulling its sponsorship of the Boy Scouts because the Scouts finally stopped discriminating against girls and LGBTQ kids.  Hey Mor(m)ons, if there is a One True God it sure as shit-filled magic undies ain't yours!

It's week two of the Infinity War hangover, and there's still nothing new under the box office sun.  As tempting as it would be to slobber over Rachel "Edel" Weisz and Rachel "Fun Size" McAdams locking both sets of lips, Disobedience is sure to be more PBS than HBO.  And there's as much chance of Trump porking a pig Black Mirror-style as there is of me checking out Melissa "Joe" McCarthy going back to school in Life of the Party.  If I want to see a fat comedian do that shtick, I'll rewatch Dangerfield in the actual Back to School.

Despite having played Schindler, Valjean and Kinsey, Liam "We Are The Knights Who Say" Neeson is best known these days for old codger with "a particular set of skills" roles.  Which is a nice way of saying that this once-talented actor has been making the same shitballs Taken movie for the past 28 years.  Oh yeah, I'm counting 1990's Darkman.  It's just Taken with Mission Impossible masks and a Sam Raimi sensibility.  Groovy.

Taken came out in Aught Eight.  It was followed by 2011's Taken with wolves, The Grey.  Later that year, Unknown was Taken with amnesia.  2012 shat out Taken 2: More of the Same.  A Walk Among the Tombstones was Taken with a hangover.  Taken 3 framed Neeson for murder.  Non-Stop was Taken on a plane.  Run All Night was Taken on foot.  And The Commuter is Taken on a train.

The Commuter is so scattershot and bull-titted that it could only have been directed by Neeson's late-career co-conspirator, Jaume "Adios" Collet-Serra.  Neeson is Michael MacCauley, an insurance salesman who just got fired.  And who used to be a cop.  And who thinks it's totally copa for a stranger on a train to offer him $100K to find a random person on that train.  Even though he doesn't know why the stranger wants the random person found, only gets $25K up front and has no fucking idea how he's supposed to collect the other $75K.

The Commuter is only slightly less painful than having your dick run over by an Amtrak.

May 11, 2018