RIGHT ON TRACK
How does Liam Neeson’s Metro-North trip in his new thriller, ‘The Commuter,’ compare to yours?
THE Winter of Hell might be fully upon us, with subway and train delays due to the big freeze and work on the tracks — but at least your evening commute is nothing like Liam Neeson’s.
In his latest movie, “The Commuter” (out Friday), the 65-year-old action star stares death in the face aboard the 6:25 p.m. Metro-North Hudson line to Poughkeepsie.
It’s the exact same train I take to my sleepy suburb of Irvington, NY — although it actually terminates at CrotonHarmon — and, boy, does my journey seem dull compared to the murder and mayhem unfolding in the flick.
Director Jaume Collet-Serra partly chose this particular line because of Neeson’s “attachment” to the route. He regularly uses it to travel upstate to his country home in Millbrook, NY (although, sadly, he’s never taken a seat next to me).
“Liam has taken that train literally hundreds of times, and he loves it,” ColletSerra tells The Post. “It is a very beautiful route going from Grand Central through Harlem and up the Hudson River.”
Not that Neeson’s character, Michael, spends much time gazing out of the
window. After being confronted by a mysterious stranger, he is blackmailed into finding out the identity of a fellow passenger before the last stop.
Just as you’d expect from one of the actor’s thrillers, there’s plenty of headbutting and shooting — the type of thing that just wouldn’t be tolerated on the quiet car. (The movie was actually filmed on a London set featuring a 30ton reconstruction of a Metro-North train.)
And it takes a bit of license as far as the destinations are concerned. ColletSerra’s Hudson line makes a stop at 86th Street and Lexington Avenue, followed by the fictitious 96th and Lex stop before winding its way towards Cold Spring via Dobbs Ferry and Tarrytown.
But the director maintains that the diversity of the passengers in “The Commuter” reflects real life.
“The line has a great cross section of people on their commute upstate — some people getting off in Harlem and others traveling for an hour-and-a-half,” says Collet-Serra. “There are white- and blue-collar workers sitting together, all with different [back] stories.”
He also points out that the somewhat old-fashioned (and, in the movie, rather grimy) Metro-North train is a metaphor for Neeson’s downtrodden insurance salesman.
“They both are a little bit beat-up,” he says. “In other cities than New York, the trains are more modern,” says the Spainborn director, who’s teamed with Neeson on three previous films.
“They don’t use the system so much where the conductor places slips of paper on the seat in front [to show which zone you are traveling to].”
The latter element is integral to the plot of “The Commuter,” since Michael has to figure out where each passenger is getting off.
As part of his research for the film, Collet-Serra casually interviewed a number of Metro-North engineers and conductors. One such conversation made its way into the final script.
“The conductors have a good sense of humor and don’t take things too seriously because they can’t while dealing with [difficult] passengers in their job,” he says. “One of them said: ‘If the train doesn’t kill me, the people will.’” The quote is delivered by British actor Colin McFarlane.
It’s a great line, but the best in the film arguably belongs to actor Andy Nyman, who plays another traveler on the train. After his terrible ordeal aboard the Metro-North, involving a spectacular derailment, his character blurts out: “Next time, I’ll take the bus.”
Seasoned Westchester commuters like me can only shrug.