Film Review: The Commuter

Several years ago, Jaume Collet-Serra directed a screenplay by Ryan Engle, where Liam Neeson’s transatlantic flight is interrupted by mysterious villains texting him, threatening to kill passengers unless he co-operates. Of course, his experience in law enforcement helps him save the day. That film was Non-Stop. Definitely not The Commuter.

Because in The Commuter, Collet-Serra directs a screenplay by Ryan Engle, Byron Willinger and Philip de Blasi, wherein Liam Neeson’s daily train commute is interrupted by mysterious villains calling him, threatening to kill passengers unless he co-operates. Naturally, his previous experience in law enforcement helps him save the day.

To be fair, in the first act, the director does show some artistic flair. An impressive sequence that compresses thousands of days into mere minutes shows the unerringly banal, yet warmly recognisable, routine of Michael MacCauley’s days: waking his teenage son; being dropped off by his wife (Elizabeth McGovern) at the train station; and swapping pleasantries with his fellow commuters – the content ordinariness of daily life.

That is until a mysterious villain (Vera Farmiga) forces ex-cop McCauley to use his particular skillset to track down the one passenger who does not belong on his daily commute. If McCauley complies, he gets $100,000, which his family desperately needs. If he does not, people will die. A truly daft amalgam of thriller clichés and Neesploitation tropes, The Commuter spends a punishing amount of time watching Neeson prowling through train carriages, analysing stock characters and ticket stubs, and getting into fights above and below train tracks. Diehard fans may enjoy seeing Neeson transform a guitar into, variously, a bludgeon, knife and battering ram in one violent sequence, but otherwise, there’s little joy to be had.

McCauley’s innate Good Guyness is never in doubt, so there’s no internal conflict, while the supporting one-dimensional characters utterly squander the talents of the cast (Patrick Wilson, Sam Neill, Jonathan Banks, Florence Pugh, and our own Killian Scott). Unfortunately, there’s more tension, intrigue and dynamic dialogue to be found on the Luas.