Neeson Month - Mini Review: Run all night

We’re back in Low-budget B-movie territory which is where Liam Neeson tends to shine, next up in Neeson Month

We’re looking at Run all Night

Released in 2015 by Warner Bros, unfortunately around the same time Disney released the Cinderella remake, Run All Night had a mixed but positive-ish reception with critics, a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes but sadly that didn’t save it at the Box office, where it may a dismal $80m on a budget of around $50m. Taking out theatre cuts and marketing that’s a dismal loss for the movie.

But that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad movie, does it? Here’s my take

The movie centres around a guy named Jimmy Conlon (played by Liam Neeson) he was a dangerous criminal but is now a has-been, haunted by his previous actions and with his only friend being his old boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). After a complicated business deal goes south, an altercation results in the death of Shawn’s son. Now, Jimmy has to race to save his life and his son’s from the mob that Shawn is sending after them.

Now, for a movie of this type, there isn’t as much action as you’d expect. They take their time setting everything up, the friendship between Shawn and Jimmy, the business deal that ultimately results in the death of Shawn’s son, Danny (played by Donald Pierce from Logan – Boyd Holbrook) and even sets up the character arc with Jimmy’s son, Mike (played by Rick Flag, and totally believable son of Liam Neeson, Joel Kinnaman)

Even when the action gets started, there are some shootouts no doubt, but the emotional development of the characters comes first. Whilst it may be cliché, they begin exploring the abandonment issues between Jimmy and Mike, whilst also showing the dark path the friendship between Jimmy and Shawn has gone. We also see Mike’s guilt, particularly in his conversations with Wilson Fisk, I mean Detective Harding (played by Vincent D’Onforio) a detective who really wants to get him but is one of the few decent and honest cops in the city.

We see pretty quickly how overmatched the two are, Shawn his influence in the police and has specialists rearrange the murder victims to make it look like Mike was responsible. Fortunately, it’s not a prove your innocence plot as there’s a well set up out for him in the form of ‘Legs’ one of his students who stumbled into the crime scene and saw everything without himself being noticed.

So, if there’s one problem I have with this movie is how easily Jimmy settles this. He goes into the bar and kills everyone, chasing Shawn into a trainyard. I know that’s not the end of the movie but I felt it came too quickly and a more elongated action scene was probably called for

Also, the assassins, in contrast to basically everyone else, have next to no character whatsoever.

Run all night is a solid character-driven movie but some sacrifices may have been necessary to make the action stand out more and give some more motivation to the assassins.

Rating 70/100