Movie Review: Retribution

We can only speculate as to why Liam Neeson, who had his last blockbuster hit “Taken” in 2008, and in the last 15 years has been in a revolving door of movie making where he seems to play the same overall character each time. The movies he has made during this period have been either average or below average, around 60 of them. It’s probably no coincidence that this infinite loop of movies started around March 2009, when his wife Natasha Richardson died in a freak skiing accident. It could be that Neeson making movies all year round might be a way of trying to distract himself from what happened to his wife, where she died after a minor fall on a ski slope. A death of a spouse like this, is almost impossible to recover from. We all do what we can to try and move on from tragedy.

This time around with the new movie “Retribution” there are some different and positive features of this film that are moving in the right direction. For one thing, Neeson’s character Matt Turner, spends the entire time sitting in his car, mostly with his 2 children, following the instructions of a terrorist who is threatening to blow up his car. Most of the terrorist scenes are well done, however, the flaw in this story is that the police are convinced by the terrorist and several car explosions that Turner had something to do with what has been going on. Considering that there is a bomb under Turner’s car seat about to explode if he gets out of the car, it would not make sense that Turner set all of this up himself and would include his own children.

There is somewhat of a trick ending when we are shown the terrorist behind these car bombings, that I thought was within an acceptable level of believablilty. I also thought the ending was both satifying and believable as well.

Unfortunately the critics are once again trashing this latest Neeson film, at 30% with the IMDB rating a low 5.5. While this is not a good or a great movie, this is not a film that should be rated 30%. My rating is 70% with a moderate recommendation, mainly for the acting. From all the fans of the great movie Taken, hopefully Neeson will one day make another film that good again.