Grim-faced Liam Neeson stars as a former NYC cop, unlicensed PI, and recovering alcoholic brought into a dangerous situation involving drug traffickers and the two one-time functionaries in the DEA who happened across their files while working for the government (in whatever capacity that seems undetermined) that extort from them (and kill their kidnapped loved ones after receipt of payment). Neeson's Matt Scudder is asked by a drug trafficker (Dan Stevens) to find the ones responsible for killing his wife, supposedly after he paid a ransom for her return (the body found in numerous pieces in bags). Matt met this trafficker's brother, Peter (Boyd Holbrook), at an addicts meeting, and their association has them eventually in a cat-and-mouse with psychopaths Ray and Albert (David Harbour and Adam David Thompson). Ray is gabby and full of wicked glee while Albert is subdued, cold, and detached
they live together, drive around in a white van, pursue the drug traffickers on the files they secured, build a kidnap plot, take their women, ask for ransom, and typically butcher those kidnapped, chopping up the bodies in their basement, and tossing off the bagged body parts in areas of their city. Scudder plans to find them and stop them. When a Russian trafficker's daughter is taken, Scudder will negotiate a meet-and-swap, but, of course, it all goes down violently.
Provided a character with more meat on the bones than usual, Neeson morosely works the PI beat with a clever, intuitive mind and determined drive, befriending a discarded African-American youth named TJ (Astro) he tries to offer paternal and streetwise advice to so he can survive. A bullet to the eye of a little girl during a shootout with three grocery store hoods changed Scudder's life for good. This film has a subversive edge to it thanks to the two killers-kidnappers involved and Scudder's own journey to find them, often encountering all kinds of dangers along the way as the city offers its peril to him. The garrote shows up, as does the knife, taser, and gun, and there's plenty of unpleasantness Scudder must find his way through to get to the killers. As you might have guessed, the ending particularly is violent. Neeson, once again, carries the film, an anchor of surefootedness, ably convincing as this flawed man looking for redemption and absolution, perhaps getting his chance when a little girl is kidnapped. The shady characters opposite him aren't stereotypes, as the actors portraying them are given multi-faceted human beings using the drug trade as a means to live and thrive (the Russian has a bedridden invalid wife lost to the world he must take care of), but they aren't one-dimensional caricatures which is a plus in the film's favor. The dreary, crime-infested cityscape is quite a setting for Neeson's melancholy PI to work within. Ray and Albert are a creepy duo; one scene shows them sitting around a table eating breakfast while Ray comments that Y2K, listed on the front page of the newspaper, is not what the city should be worried about. A flashback involving a third partner of Ray and Albert's, for which Scudder questions, is certainly perhaps the most unsettling point in the movie.
Provided a character with more meat on the bones than usual, Neeson morosely works the PI beat with a clever, intuitive mind and determined drive, befriending a discarded African-American youth named TJ (Astro) he tries to offer paternal and streetwise advice to so he can survive. A bullet to the eye of a little girl during a shootout with three grocery store hoods changed Scudder's life for good. This film has a subversive edge to it thanks to the two killers-kidnappers involved and Scudder's own journey to find them, often encountering all kinds of dangers along the way as the city offers its peril to him. The garrote shows up, as does the knife, taser, and gun, and there's plenty of unpleasantness Scudder must find his way through to get to the killers. As you might have guessed, the ending particularly is violent. Neeson, once again, carries the film, an anchor of surefootedness, ably convincing as this flawed man looking for redemption and absolution, perhaps getting his chance when a little girl is kidnapped. The shady characters opposite him aren't stereotypes, as the actors portraying them are given multi-faceted human beings using the drug trade as a means to live and thrive (the Russian has a bedridden invalid wife lost to the world he must take care of), but they aren't one-dimensional caricatures which is a plus in the film's favor. The dreary, crime-infested cityscape is quite a setting for Neeson's melancholy PI to work within. Ray and Albert are a creepy duo; one scene shows them sitting around a table eating breakfast while Ray comments that Y2K, listed on the front page of the newspaper, is not what the city should be worried about. A flashback involving a third partner of Ray and Albert's, for which Scudder questions, is certainly perhaps the most unsettling point in the movie.