It’s typical Neeson in ‘Honest Thief’
Does he still have ‘set of skills’ necessary to get people to theaters?
Liam Neeson has a particular set of skills, but can even he rescue the badly beaten theater box office?
OK, so it’s Neeson’s now-synonymous-with-him character from the “Taken” movies, Bryan Mills, who actually has the aforementioned “particular set of skills,” but the 68year-old actor from Northern Ireland has proved to have the attributes to be a consistently bankable action-movie commodity. Heck, he stars in one or two movies vaguely like 2008’s “Taken” seemingly every year.
The latest is the theater-bound “Honest Thief,” a competently made, largely uninspired and wholly Neeson-y action-drama about a man trying to come clean about his criminal past so he can spend the rest of his years guilt-free with the woman he loves.
( You didn’t think the pandemic was going to keep Neeson off movie screens, did you?)
In “Honest Thief,” Neeson portrays Tom Carter, better known to law-enforcement types as the “In and Out Bandit.” Over the years, authorities have failed to identify and catch this person stealing a combined $9 million from a number of banks, the robber possessing the, well, skills to make it appear he was never even there.
Early on in the movie, Tom meets the charming Annie (Kate Walsh, “Grey’s Anatomy”), manager of the storage facility where he stashes his loot.
A year later, they are happily together, with Tom pressing Annie to move into a house he wants to buy for them. While he hasn’t stolen since they met, he also hasn’t told her about that aspect of his life.
The latter weighs on him, and, after a failed attempt to come clean to Annie, he contacts the FBI. He reasons he can strike a deal to return all the money he has taken — he’s such a good guy that he hasn’t spent any of it — and receive an extremely light sentence in return.
First, he speaks to Agent Baker (Robert Patrick of “Terminator 2” fame), who doesn’t believe Tom is who he says he is, explaining that a number of people claim to be the In and Out Bandit each year.
Still, Baker sends two agents, Nivens (Jai Courtney, “Suicide Squad”) and Hall (Anthony Ramos, “Hamilton”), to meet with him. They’re skeptical, too, so Tom agrees to point them to some of the money.
When they find millions in cash in a storage unit, Nivens sees the money as the means for him and his partner to secure a financial future for their families, and he strong-arms the reluctant Ramos to go along with stealing it.
Of course, things get messy immediately, with the agents having a run-in with the suspicious Annie outside Tom’s unit.
Things grow only more complicated from there, and Tom must work to protect Annie and clear himself of other wrongdoing.
His best ally may be another FBI agent, Jeffrey Donovan’s Meyers, an apparently honorable chap but who will take some convincing from Tom. (The movie is set in the Boston area, and the “Burn Notice” star — and Massachusetts native — apparently didn’t get the memo stating that actors would not be using a thick Beantown accent in “Honest Thief.”)
“Honest Thief ” is written and directed by Mark Williams, whose directorial debut came in 2016 with the Gerard Butler drama “A Family Man” and who also co-created the hit Netflix drama series “Ozark.”
In the production notes for “Honest Thief,” Williams talks about how this story of second chances and redemption has been in his mind for five years. Also in the notes, Neeson talks about how Williams’ script passed his “cup-of-tea test,” meaning that, a few pages into reading it, he didn’t have the urge to stop to get a cup but instead read the whole thing.
Given all that, you’d expect “Honest Thief” to do one interesting thing, have one compelling twist up its sleeve, but it doesn’t.
While we can wonder about the quality of many of the screenplays that find their way into Neeson’s pre-tea hands, there’s nothing painfully wrong with “Honest Thief.” Sure, its characters are a little dopey at times, but it gets you from Point A to Point B without too much frustration.
It doesn’t hurt for the movie to have Neeson snarling as only he can through another one of these flicks, even if his work is decidedly of the guilty-pleasure variety. (“I’m a retired bank robber — not a murderer!” he growls at one point, almost as if he’s desperate for us to forget his Academy Award-nominated work in 1993 Best Picture winner “Schindler’s List.”)
Neither “Honest Thief ” nor its star will be earning any Oscar nominations, but, if nothing else, the mildly entertaining affair brings a slice of normalcy to a very abnormal year.