RUN ALL NIGHT Review

Run All Night is one of those fractured tales. The ones where each individual element is suspect to have greater implications than we might recognize upon introduction. The ones where we know how things must go and yet it is still able to somehow deviate from expectations allowing for the core proceedings of the familiar story to feel fresh. In essence, Run All Night feels much like a perfect storm of ideas and contributions from parties that have a similar goal in mind while each bringing something unique to the table. Obviously the biggest of these contributing factors is the presence of star Liam Neeson. Neeson has made a habit of annually presenting us with a run of the mill action flick that revels in B-movie territory and can be rather hit or miss, but most of the time are entertaining enough. I despise the Taken sequels yet have enjoyed his collaborations with Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown, Non-Stop) as well as his excursions with Joe Carnahan (The Grey) and Scott Frank (A Walk Among the Tombstones), respectively. And while Neeson may still do his best work when he shows how eclectic he can be (The LEGO Movie) I always look forward to what his collaborations with Collet-Serra have to offer. Compared to their previous efforts Run All Night is much less mainstream and more in the vein of a different era. Whereas Unknown and Non-Stop were both polished and perfected to squarely fit into a genre Run All Night is dirty and grimy and while it fits into a certain type of film, it doesn't necessarily adhere to any one set of expectations. Expectations are key with this type of film though and I realize that. Call it what you will, whether it be that we have tapered expectations for these Liam Neeson actioners now or that this is a case of the film being so much better than the initial black sheep facade it was presented to us with that I'm over-compensating; either way, I really enjoyed myself as I sat and witnessed Neeson get more even than he's ever gotten before and might even call the film pretty great if it holds up under future viewings (which will definitely happen).