Shoot your money-maker
NEW YORK — “Anything can be a thriller,” Jaume Collet-Serra said. “Any situation in your life — anything about betrayal, finding the truth or something that’s more action-driven. It’s just (a question of ) being very specific about what your character wants and making it very hard for them to get.”
He would know. The Spanish-born director makes things hard for Liam Neeson for the fourth time in seven years with The Commuter.
Based on simple yet effective premises, their films (including 2011’s
Unknown, 2014’s Non-Stop and 2015’s Run All Night) share one other trait: high entertainment value.
The pair’s latest edge-of-your seat offering posits Neeson as a 60-something guy who gets let go from his job, then gets more than he bargained for on the train ride home to his wife and teenage son.
After accepting a substantial sum of money to track down a stranger on the train, Neeson’s Michael MacCauley realizes the offer comes with karmic debt.
“It’s very hard to find movies that have action and also mystery,” Collet-Serra said. “Either you have a survival thriller like (the director’s 2016 stranded surfer pic) The Shallows, where there’s no secret — you know everything — or you have something that is full of secrets, where it’s hard to infuse action.”
With The Commuter, he wanted to combine the two, while tackling perhaps the film’s greatest obstacle: almost the entire story takes place aboard the train.
“We enjoyed the challenge of making a movie in one location,” he said. “That’s new to my body of work. It was very limiting, and exciting. I usually choose movies because I’m scared of them. I’m always wondering how not to repeat myself.”
That’s no easy feat when you’re making your fourth feature with the same lead actor. For the director, it was just another challenge. And if he gets the chance to work with Neeson again, he admits it would be hard to say no.
“He’s just an amazing actor,” Collet-Serra said. “He can do anything. He’s brilliant at making a character relatable, instantly. He’s very collaborative and respectful, all the things you want in a partner.”
Neeson is an eager co-conspirator for ColletSerra. In The Commuter, in addition to working within the confines of the train, they had to navigate the film’s twisting plot.