Tag Archives: Liam Neeson

The Naked Gun (2025) review — Shooting blanks

August 2, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by Akiva Schaffer | Written by Schaffer, Dan Gregor, and Doug Mand, based on the TV series Police Squad, by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker | ▲1/2 Hollywood is excited by this late-arriving sequel/reboot because mainstream, broad comedy has been a non-starter on the big screen for years. Even the sequel to… Read More

Wildcat review — “The truth shall make you odd”

May 27, 2024 flawintheiris

Directed by Ethan Hawke | Written by Hawke and Shelby Gaines | 103 min | ▲▲▲△△ An earlier, capsule version of this review appeared during FITI coverage of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. The headline is lifted from American southern gothic author Flannery O'Connor, as is this gem: “The truth doesn’t change according to… Read More

A Cult Of One: The Bounty

July 30, 2023 flawintheiris

This is a semi-regular segment on FITI that shines a light on a feature distinctly unloved, or underloved, and for one reason or another deserves reappraisal. Directed by Roger Donaldson | Written by Robert Bolt and Ian Mune, from the book Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian by Richard Hough | 132 min | 1984 |… Read More

Blacklight review — Neeson thriller is spectacularly lame

February 10, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Mark Williams | Written by Williams, Nick May, and Brandon Reavis | 108 min | ▲△△△△ Liam Neeson, so good in period epics like Silence and dramas like Ordinary Love, is best known these days for those interchangeable action pictures with titles like The Commuter, Cold Pursuit, and The Marksman. There's a precedence for… Read More

Ordinary Love review — Manville and Neeson terrific in cancer drama

May 6, 2020 flawintheiris

Directed by Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn | Written by Owen McCafferty | 92 min | On Demand A somber, but unsentimental film about a loving middle aged couple where one partner is diagnosed with breast cancer, and how the illness impacts their life together. Joan and Tom (Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson) are… Read More

Now on Canadian Netflix: December 2018

December 19, 2018 flawintheiris

Roma One could make an argument last year's Mudbound was the feature that signalled Netlfix's prestige drama interest, readying their horses for the annual Oscar race. Roma is really the tipping point, a film with the critical momentum to suggest it could actually take the Best Picture statuette. I'd be surprised, simply because it's much… Read More

Silence review — Martyrs enjoyed vicariously, or not

January 12, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Martin Scorcese | Written by Scorcese and Jay Cocks, adapting a book by Shûsaku Endô | 161 min Martin Scorcese has made a lot of different kinds of movies, but much of his work can be grouped in three modes: The street fighter, telling tales of desperate, frequently armed men in Taxi Driver,… Read More

Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy review

July 11, 2015 flawintheiris

Watching Interstellar for a third time, I felt very much like I had a sense of what Christopher Nolan was going for. But it took three views to really feel like I got it. I love that, when movies have enough depth and complexity that it takes more than one viewing to fully grasp what's… Read More

Entourage review — Return of the bromcom

June 6, 2015 flawintheiris

Directed by Doug Ellin, written by Ellin from a story by Ellin and Rob Weiss, from the TV series Watching Entourage, I spent a lot of time thinking about the expectations we have when we watch a show on HBO, and then a movie at the multiplex. On TV, I enjoyed the story of suburban… Read More

Run All Night review — Liam Neeson brings it

March 12, 2015 flawintheiris

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, written by Brad Ingelsby Liam Neeson: action icon. It would have been hard to believe 10 years ago, even though he once played a superhero in Darkman. Neeson's found a professional niche comparable to what Robert Mitchum used to do, or late career Charles Bronson. That said, his efforts in the action… Read More