A bit slow at times and overall keeps your interest, before finishing with a bit of an anticlimactic ending. Liam Neeson completely holds the film together, once again portraying the intelligent hero with a past that he would like to forget. This time around, there’s much less action than his other films. This, plus the slower pace, may turn off his usual fans. The detective work involved is a bit too straightforward, and there isn’t too much of a mystery for him to solve. The ending leaves us with dozens of unanswered questions and a resolution that never really quite works, especially since they don’t do a great job of getting you invested in the characters in peril. The trailer and TV spots also cause some problems. The reason that Neeson’s character quits the police force is a late film reveal that was given away in the trailers, while the TV commercials are a bit misleading as to who he is trying to save. They also imply a bit more of a game of cat and mouse between the hero and villains, but there’s very little of the “who-can-outsmart-who” story that I expected.
**1/2 out of *****