What does Liam Neeson have left to lose? At various times he has misplaced his daughter, his wife, his job and more often than not his freedom, what’s left? In his latest film Retribution, the script gets flipped and he ends up losing all four of those items in the first reel alone.
Set in Berlin, Neeson plays Matt Turner a high-stakes broker who has ignored his family pursuing profits so egregiously that they are looking for the exit. When Matt is guilted into taking his children Zach (Jack Champion) and Emily (Lilly Aspell) to school, what starts as an inconvenience turns tragic.
When he learns that his expensive ride has come equipped with the optional booby-trap bomb under the seat the day only gets worse. He is being blackmailed by an unknown criminal and forced to watch members of his work team get blown up for their trouble.
Stories like this have been done many times before and Retribution struggles under this weight. In its defence, its Berlin setting offers some fresh scenery to chew up and the tension does bubble along nicely. Neeson is less the action star and more the thinking man caught in the crosshairs type hero.
Rob Hudson
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