Brief Story Line
Ryan Flanagan aka Fang (Liam Neeson - Cold Pursuit, A Monster Calls etc) was a war veteran who was forced to go on a run after being accused of committing a crime. Using a very fast car, Fang tried to evade capture from the Arkansas Highway Patrol led by Major Tilton (Maurice Marvel Meredith). As he passed through Texas, Fang was being chased by Major Walter Pope (Michael Chiklis - Hubie Halloween, The Shield TV series etc) who did not hesitate to use deadly force on him.
Meanwhile the FBI tried to use Fang's ex-wife Tara (Marisa Tomei -Spider-man: No Way Home, The Wrestler etc) to convince him to surrender. With the high speed car chase being televised, Fang's old military buddies Tanker (Ving Rhames - Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, The Garfield Movie etc) and Munch (Marcus Thomas - The Ice Road and its sequel etc) who found out about the news also tried to help him.
So what would happen to Fang and how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
As fans of Liam Neeson's movies which are usually of action thriller genre with not so complicated stories, my wife and I almost never missed out on seeing them in the theaters. Despite not knowing whatsoever on the plot and just relied on his name, my wife and I did not hesitate to give this a try. And frankly we were not disappointed. It was a pretty fun movie where the action was a little bit different as it focused on high speed car chase instead of the hand to hand combat by Neeson. There was a little bit of war action scenes that was not spectacular but sufficient to provide context, but there were none of those brutal fights involving Neeson.
The movie itself began with the car chase and combined with some flashbacks. At first I was a bit distracted with the constant back and forth but it did not take long for me to get accustomed to it and was able to enjoy it better. Surprisingly Neeson's character was a little bit different from his past movies where he was shown as vulnerable here (suffering a bit of PTSD) and not having full one man show. And that live television coverage of the chase was a nice touch too as it gave a bit of realism (this thing seemed to happen occassionaly in the US).
This film was written by Thompson Evans whose past experience was writing for TV movie Buried in Barstow and directed by Mark Vanselow in his feature film directorial debut. After finding out more info on him, I was surprised to find out that he is the stunt-double for Neeson since 1998 and worked as stunt-man and stunt coordinator in more than 100 movies. So he was obviously no stranger to action sequence and this is definitely a great addition to his portfolio. The cast in general did OK enough and Marisa Tomei seemed convincing as Fang's ex. Aside from the above names, there were several support cast in minor roles such as Brett Tucker (Station 19 TV series etc) as Todd, Ryan Morgan (A Savage Christmas etc) as Wiz, Stella Stocker as the voice of Helene (Car's AI) and few others. Oh I did notice that the newscaster Laura Coates in the movie is real-life news Anchor for CNN.
The duration of the movie was pretty short with 96 minutes, with the highlight being the car chase and a little flashback scenes of Fang's past. There was no mid or post end credit scenes while the ending was not extraordinary and seemed to be aimed at pleasing the audience. The whole movie tone felt light combined with few humor but there were few things during car chase where it was not properly addressed resulting to inconsistency (like what my wife noticed on the car location tracker that suddenly disappear even before realized by Fang and few other stuff). However since this is a film that was just for fun, it did not really bother us.
In the end, this was something that was pretty enjoyable. It might be standard Liam Neeson movie but it felt brighter than his recent ones (except of course The Naked Gun reboot). So if you are still interested in watching Neeson doing nearly the impossible of evading captures from multiple police cars and also fighting in war, then you could give this a try. But if you are hoping for a very high quality action movie with smart writing and great acting, then this won't satisfy you. My wife and I still had good time seeing this in the cinema with nice sound effects that enhanced the action sequence. And since it is a very new movie that will only be released in the US on 30 October, it's a nice feeling of seeing it earlier than most.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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