In ‘Honest Thief,’ money makes the world go wrong

How many more times will Liam Neeson say he’s retiring from the action film genre? Well, if he makes more of them like “Honest Thief,” let’s hope it’s not for a while. Don’t bother trying to figure out where this one’s going, even if you’re sure the ground, or at least something very much like it, has been covered before.

Let’s see, a professional criminal decides to go straight, in this case because he’s finally met the right woman, and he doesn’t want to lose her. Then everything— and more— that can go wrong, does.

But while that sort of plotline is ripe for clichés, almost everything that’s presented here is surprisingly fresh. It’s a slick and lean piece of filmmaking. It gets right down to telling its story, sticks with it and has a cast playing it out, and sometimes overplaying it (to just the right degree) in a way that creates a constant “what comes next?” atmosphere.

Wasting no narrative time, a news report tells of the “eighth bank robbery in six years, with still no suspect,” and there’s “Tom” (Neeson) drilling a hole in and blasting open a bank vault, hopping in a car and driving away.

Quick! Introduce another main character! OK. “Tom” goes to a storage unit company, charmingly chats up Annie (Kate Walsh), the adult grad school student

who runs the place ... and, don’t blink, a year has gone by, they’re a couple, and he’s asking her to move in with him.

And, he adds, “There’s something else I need to tell you” (which would be, “I’m a bank robber”). But she shushes him with, “No, not tonight.”

There are more introductions to more characters: FBI Agent Meyers (Jeffrey Donovan), who’s just gone through a divorce, in which his wife got the house and he got the dog. Time to meet his partner, FBI Agent Baker (Robert Patrick), one of those crusty, overworked lawmen.

And it’s back to “Tom,” as he refers to himself, calling the FBI, saying he’s the robber everyone’s been looking for, and that he wants to surrender himself, give back the money— in return for a reduced sentence— because he met a woman. But one agent rolls his eyes and says to the other, “We’ve got another guy confessing to the crime.”

This is where the curve balls start getting pitched. It moves along at a fast clip, but nothing feels rushed.

“Honest Thief” opens in theaters Oct. 16.