‘ Thief’ robs Neeson of full array of skills
Liam Neeson is a movie actor, but at this point, he’s also a movie genre. Since “Taken” ( 2008), he has been most associated with a certain kind of action picture, in which a nice and slightly downtrodden guy gets pushed and pushed until he becomes a killing machine. These are ragstoriches stories in which the hero achieves status through violence.
His latest, which opens in theaters Friday, Oct. 16, is “Honest Thief,” in which he plays a brilliant bank robber, who sneaks in when banks are closed and cleans out their safes. But because this is Neeson, he’s not a hotshot bank robber. No, he’s sensitive and even a little ashamed of himself, and when he finally gets a girlfriend ( Kate Walsh), he decides to go straight.
The appeal of Neeson’s movies is in the contrast between how mild he seems and how enraged he becomes; between how humble he acts and how
violent he can be; between how dysfunctional he is at the small details of life and how proficient he is at destruction. This appeal is twofold: It’s satisfying to see the underdog get ahead, and it’s funny watching the softspoken, laidback Neeson turn into a raging maniac.
But what this all means is that the success of a Neeson action movie is dependent upon how extreme those contrasts can be made. That is, it’s better if he’s really humble and then becomes really violent. And that’s where “Honest Thief” disappoints. The movie has builtin structural limits on the extent to which Neeson can go fullon ballistic.
The story is simple, as all actionmovie stories should be. Tom ( Neeson) wants to start a new life with the woman he loves, but he doesn’t want his secret past as a successful bank robber to come between them. So one day, he calls the FBI and tries to broker a deal: He’ll turn in all of the $ 9 million he has stolen, in exchange for a reduced sentence in a minimum security jail.
Two minor quibbles: ( 1) He hasn’t spent any of the money? Really? And ( 2) If he feels guilty for stealing the money — keep in mind, he hurt no one doing it; he didn’t even scare anyone — why doesn’t he just mail the money back to the various banks? Why involve law enforcement? A lot could go wrong.
To be clear, the problem here is not that Tom’s actions are hard to believe, but rather that the only way to believe his actions is to also believe that he’s stupid. But fine. If we don’t accept a movie’s premise, we can’t enjoy it, so we should all do our best to accept it and take the ride.
Oh, but there are complications. Tom runs into some crooked FBI agents, and one of them ( Jai Courtney) gets the idea that he should steal Tom’s money and kill him. Mistake! He thinks Tom is a pushover. The agent doesn’t realize that very soon he’ll be picking up the phone to hear that familiar Neeson growl: “I’m coming for you!”
Now, just between us, I can watch one of these Neeson movies once a week and be happy, but “Honest Thief” isn’t one of the better ones for the reasons mentioned earlier. Because he is fighting government agents, because his identity is known to law enforcement, and because he is eventually heading to jail no matter what happens, Tom can only go so crazy. And a Neeson movie with constraints, that can’t scale the heights and depths of absolute mayhem, can’t achieve its full potential.
But still, if you love this kind of movie, you will at least like “Honest Thief.”