You can set your watch to the release of any new Liam Neeson action vehicle, and in this particular case “vehicle” is the operative word, since all said action takes place in a car that’s wired to explode if anyone contained therein attempts to get out. If that sounds like a movie you’ve seen before, you probably have and just as likely forgot about it; though, apparently, Retribution is based on a French film, which is sort of amazing since it’s so devoid of anything that smacks of a distinctive imagination that you wonder why the producers even bothered to pay for the rights. 

Neeson plays what I assume is—based on his accent and those of his children—an American named Matt Turner living and working in Berlin as a high-end financial consultant who seems to have pissed some of his clients off if we can take the phone calls we hear at face value. Talking on the phone seems to be Matt’s default setting, as his wife (Embeth Davidtz) and two children, teenage Zack (Jack Champion) and younger Emily (Lilly Aspell), rarely bother to address him on their own. Matt finds out on the fateful day that he has forgotten it’s his turn to drive the kids to school, and so he does so grudgingly while pressing clients on speaker to not sell or otherwise transfer their assets out of his supervision. The kids in the back seat roll their eyes and scroll through their WhatsApp messages. Then Matt receives a call from a voice-altered individual who tells him about the bomb installed under his seat and how if he or the kids get out, or if he calls the police, the bomb will go off. The caller wants Matt to send him money from a Middle Eastern account, but unlike in Speed, the template for this kind of mobile ransom story, Matt is allowed to stop the car, so there is a bit of variety, as well as humor. At one point, the car’s forward momentum, not to mention the movie’s, is slowed by an anti-capitalist demonstration. (Gotta love those Germans.)

As usual, Neeson is too much of a professional to coast, and he stokes his anger furnace sufficiently in counter-threatening the bad guy while also showing how Matt slowly realizes that he hasn’t really been there for his kids up to this point, a rather pointless dramatic add-on since it makes it seem as if he’s only going to save their lives because he suddenly feels guilty about his poor fathering skills. Director Nimród Antal has no choice but to keep things moving and the film is better than some previous Neeson actioners in that it builds tension, though the payoff isn’t potent if only because the big reveal isn’t that surprising. According to my watch, we can expect the next Neeson movie in Japan on May 1, 2024. 

Now playing in Tokyo at Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011).

Retribution home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2022 Studiocanal SAS-TF1 Films Production SAS