Tonight's Movie: Retribution (2023)

August 27th was the second annual National Cinema Day, with tickets at hundreds of theaters across the country only $4 apiece.

It was thus the perfect day to go to my local Cinemark Theatre and see the new Liam Neeson action film, RETRIBUTION (2023). A sold-out crowd taking advantage of the inexpensive tickets made the movie that much more fun.

RETRIBUTION is a remake of a Spanish film, EL DESCONOCIDO (2015). It's about a very bad day in the life of Matt Turner (Neeson), an American businessman living in Germany.

Matt is driving his teen son Zach (Jack Champion) and daughter Emily (Lilly Aspell, Young Diana in the WONDER WOMAN films) to school when a phone in the center console of his car starts ringing. No one knows whose phone it is...and the voice on the other end tells Matt there's a bomb under his seat. Any attempts to leave the car will result in being blown to bits.

Soon thereafter Matt witnesses a colleague's car bombing death and realizes the voice means business. Matt tries to placate him...and in the process coincidentally learns his wife Heather (Embeth Davidtz) is at that very moment visiting a divorce attorney. And the police seem to think he's responsible for the earlier car bomb. Yes, Matt is having a very, very bad day.

I'll leave off with the plotline there in order to leave the rest of movie for viewers to discover; the film is relatively short, and it's fun to watch the story unfold. It may not be Neeson's best action film, but I thought it was solid and it gave me what I wanted: An enjoyable, diverting time at the movies.

I mean, is there any better moment in a Neeson action movie than when the villain crosses the line and now Neeson's gonna make sure he regrets it?! There's a key sequence where the balance of power shifts that I especially loved.

Noma Dumezweni plays Angela Brickman, a Europol agent on the case who interacts with Matt. The actress seemed familiar, but it wasn't until I looked her up after the movie that I realized she was the Queen in THE LITTLE MERMAID (2023). Dumezweni is very good in her "negotiator" role, plying Matt with practiced discussion tactics yet also coming across as a sympathetic human.

Another of the film's pleasures: It's only 91 minutes! That's not the norm when seeing most modern movies, which so often run past two hours, and it's really nice when a movie ends before it wears out its welcome. That said, this movie actually could have used another minute of closure; it seemed like they weren't quite sure how to end it.

Parental Advisory: This film was rated R...and I'm really not sure why. Some people meet violent ends in explosions, but there's no gore. The swearing seemed minimal and appropriate for the circumstances. The movie is not for the young, especially as children are in danger for part of the film, but a PG-13 strikes me as a more appropriate rating.

The movie was directed by Nimrod Antal and filmed by Harry Gregson-Williams on location in Berlin.

The trailer is here. Those who care about spoilers might want to be aware that the trailer shows quite a bit of the movie's action.

Prior Liam Neeson movie reviews: UNKNOWN (2011), NON-STOP (2014), THE LEGO MOVIE (2014), THE COMMUTER (2018), HONEST THIEF (2020), THE ICE ROAD (2021), and MARLOWE (2023).

Tweet