Liam Neeson’s global punching roadshow rolls on. This New York layover – overseen by Non-Stop’s Jaume Collet-Serra – improves on recent outings: unlike the Taken sequels, it never cuts around the arse-whupping you’ve paid to see, and it grounds all its beat-downs in appreciably supple character business. While doing a dusk-till-dawn shepherding job on an estranged son (Joel Kinnaman) who’s witnessed a mob hit, Neeson’s boozy, washed-up former hitman faces off at regular intervals against heavyweight thesps Ed Harris, Vincent D’Onofrio and Nick Nolte. Swooping CG scene transitions add a needless touch of Google Maps-era flash to fundamentally retro material, but Collet-Serra stages pulse-elevating car chases and bar brawls, and weaves in pleasing local detail: an ice-hockey derby provides big Liam with one ingenious avenue of escape, while the Irish-American Christmas setting pays off with a taproom shootout scored to Fairytale of New York.
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