By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Elizabeth McGovern, Dean-Charles Chapman, Florence Pugh, Killian Scott, Colin McFarlane, Clara Lago, Shazad Latif and Sam Neil.
Rating: Average.
Director Jaume Collet-Serra works with Academy Award Nominee Liam Neeson again for the fourth time with “The Commuter”, a film that is entertaining but with many flaws.
The movie tells the story of Michael MacCauley (Liam Neeson) a former New York Cop now Insurance Salesman that everyday has his daily commute in the train.
One day after a long one at work, he encounters with a mysterious woman named Joanna (Vera Farmiga) who tells him that someone doesn´t belong in the train. Michael doesn´t understand this and the conversation gets more tense when Joanna tells him that he needs to identify who that person is or his family is at danger.
Now Michael is in a race against time to identify the person and save his family before it´s too late.
Like I mentioned before “The Commuter” is a fun action movie. It has good moments and I believe the concept is really good.
The problem that I saw in this film was the screenplay itself written by Byron Willinger, Philip de Biasi and Ryan Engle. The reason why I mention this is that some of the scenes are very predictable and by moments are laughable.
I liked how Collet-Serra showed a man in his most vulnerable and at the same time you can say that the film portrays that claustrophobia that we all have, specially in a train.
The chemistry between Collet-Serra and Liam Neeson does payoff. No wonder they have worked four times and know each other very well.
Some of the fight scenes are not that good and for a movie of this genre beside a story factor you need action and fight sequences, which are the brands of a good action film.
I would liked the movie to be less predictable and I think that in terms of story that could have been fixed. The beginning could have been more solid; the ending was very dumb and laughable.
It´s fun to see this type of movies and seeing Liam Neeson on them. The problem is that ever since he did “Taken” he has been labeled to appear in this kind of films and he is one of the most talented actors of this industry.
Collet-Serra is a young and talented director who can really make a very good action film but this I must say it´s the weakest that I have seen from him.
I like how he employs the tension in some scenes and the he normally does it by the use of music and sound, This is one of his trademarks in his films and does it pretty well.
I insist that if the movie would it have a better story, it could have been a very good one since it had the potential of being a good and entertaining film.
As a movie to have a good time “The Commuter” is a good one, but if you want to see a movie that engages in terms of story this would not be the case at all.