Run All Night

The Jaume Collet-Serra/Liam Neeson partnership hits the wall with this absolutely (and often astonishingly) misguided thriller, which follows Neeson’s Jimmy Conlon as he attempts to protect his son (Joel Kinnaman’s Mike) from the vengeful advances of a brutal mobster (Ed Harris’ Shawn Maguire). Run All Night certainly seems as though it should be another briskly-paced and action-packed title in the vein of Unknown and (to a much lesser extent) Non-Stop, and yet the film primarily comes off as a generic, by-the-numbers fiasco that trudges along for the duration of its nigh endless 114 minute running time. Collet-Serra’s inability to inject even an ounce of excitement into the movie’s action sequences proves disastrous, with the less-than-engrossing nature of such moments compounded by an overly (and needlessly) frenetic visual style. (Hasn’t the shakycam’s moment come and gone by now?) And although there are a few good scenes sprinkled here and there – eg a tense moment inside a diner – Run All Night ultimately comes off as a hopelessly perfunctory effort that feels phoned in on almost every level and by virtually all involved. (Neeson is good, sure, but he’s not doing anything here he hasn’t done countless times before.)

* out of ****