Every so often, an action movie starring the ever-working Liam Neeson can be good for the soul.
These silly but often entertaining flicks — powered mainly by the engaging Northern Irish actor offering up growling line reads between punches, kicks and exchanges of gunfire — aren’t exactly as nourishing as chicken soup, but they can be filling all the same.
In theaters this week, “Retribution” is likely to give your soul indigestion.
A remake of the 2015 Spanish movie of the same name, this action thriller helmed by Nimród Antal (“Predators”) has a decent enough premise, Neeson portraying a man being forced to drive a car with a bomb under his seat while his son and daughter reside in the back of the vehicle. However, the screenplay, by Christopher Salmanpour (“FBI: Most Wanted”), is rough to the point of distraction, and all the growling in the world can’t overcome that issue.
We meet Neeson’s Matt Turner, an American banker living with his wife and kids in Berlin, working a heavy bag. (After all, as this movie soon will relegate Neeson to an automobile, we MUST see Neeson punch something or what even is the point?)
Matt’s wife, Heather — portrayed by Embeth Davidtz, whose credits include “Schindler’s List,” the 1993 Steven Spielberg-directed Academy Award-winning Holocaust drama that earned Neeson an Oscar in what feels like another lifetime — clearly is frustrated with him. She wants him to drive the children to school this morning, but, as usual, he’s distracted by work.
Soon enough — and with some effort — Matt has mouthy teenage son Zach (Jack Champion, “Avatar: The Way of Water”) and younger daughter Emily (Lilly Aspell, “Wonder Woman”) packed into his new luxury car.
Next, a phone rings. It isn’t his and, as he learns, it also doesn’t belong to Zach or Emily. He answers it, and the modulated voice on the other end of the call tells him of the bomb situated underneath him — and that if he hangs up, bits of pieces of him will be found in trees all the way to Austria.
Using an earpiece to talk to his mystery assailant, Matt initially tries to keep the truth of the situation from the kids but is able to maintain the illusion that all is well going for only so long, as he continues to receive instructions on where to drive the car and more.
The viewer has reason to suspect this puppet master wants revenge on Matt for losing him or her money — it’s been a down year for his firm — but we’re also given hints things are not that simple.
As highly unpleasant events begin to happen around him, evidence points to Matt being the one responsible for them. That certainly seems to be the belief of a colleague at his firm, Anders (Matthew Modine, directed by Antal in two 2022 episodes of Netflix’s “Stranger Things”), to whom the manipulated Matt is giving money-moving instructions.
Eventually, Noma Dumezweni (“The Undoing”) shows up as Europol agent Angela Brickmann, who continues to suggest Matt let his kids out of the car despite his insistence that doing so will set off an explosive device.
That’s representative of the major issue with “Retribution”: It constantly feels as though one character isn’t actually absorbing what another has said to him or her. Take, for instance, at one point the antagonist instructing Matt to look in his car’s glove compartment and our hero responding with enough astounded disbelief at the order that you’d have thought he’d just been commanded to perform brain surgery with a butter knife.
Antal’s work from the director’s chair is fine, never allowing the affair to become stagnant. However, like Neeson, he is unable to lift “Retribution” given the anchor that is the script.
The Spanish movie has been described as “Speed” meets “Locke.” That’s apt for this version, too, with the understanding it is neither as silly-fun as the 1994 thriller starring Keanu Reeves nor as engrossing as the 2013 drama that benefits from a terrific performance by Tom Hardy.
Counted among the new movie’s producers are Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman, who also worked on 2014’s “Non-Stop” and 2018’s “The Commuter,” two relatively entertaining action thrillers that also saw Neeson starring as a man in motion. In the production notes for “Retribution,” they refer to the three movies as an ‘unofficial trilogy.” It’s a bummer the trilogy closer runs out of fuel so quickly.
Even this many empty calories will take you only so far.
‘Retribution’
Where: Theaters.
When: Aug. 25.
Rated: R for some language and violence.
Runtime: 1 hour, 31 minutes.
Stars (of four): 1.5.
