Walk Among the Tombstones, A (2014) [Blu-ray]
Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller
Tagline: People are afraid of all the wrong things.
Liam Neeson stars in A Walk Among the Tombstones, an action-thriller based on Lawrence Block's bestselling series of mystery novels. Neeson plays Matt Scudder, an ex-cop turned unlicensed private investigator who reluctantly agrees to help a heroin
trafficker (Dan Stevens, TV's Downtown Abbey) hunt down the men who brutally murdered his wife. When the PI learns that this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that these men have committed this sort of twisted crime, he must blur the line
between right and wrong as he races to track the deviants through the backstreets of New York City before they kill again.
Storyline: Matt Scudder is a former cop now a private eye. He is asked by a drug dealer to find the men who kidnapped his wife. It seems like they killed her even after he paid them. Scudder refuses. But the man later goes to see
him and tells him how his wife was killed. Scudder takes the job. He does some research and thinks the men he is looking for have done this more than once. And that everyone they grabbed is connected to a drug dealer. He was about to give up when they
grab another girl and Scudder tries make sure she's returned alive. Written by rcs0411@yahoo.com
Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, January 13, 2015 -- A Walk Among the Tombstones is based on Lawrence Block's 1992 novel of the same name, but it's crime novelist Elmore Leonard whose voice and rhythm
writer/director Scott Frank attempts to channel... which doesn't come as much of a surprise seeing as Frank penned the screenplays for Get Shorty and Out of Sight. The filmmaker's directorial debut, The Lookout, also serves as
inspiration, followed by everything from David Fincher's Zodiac to Michael Haneke's Funny Games and Joel Schumacher's 8mm. There are long stretches, in fact, where Tombstones barely registers as its own film. That's not to say
it isn't a functional thriller, or even an entertaining one, given the presence of 17-novel detective, Matt Scudder, a troubled alcoholic Liam Neeson (shaky New York accent aside) brings to convincing life. But there's a glaring unevenness that disrupts
anything Frank accomplishes, not to mention an unfortunate familiarity that's at odds with the more unique aspects of Block's beloved unlicensed private investigator. Is A Walk Among the Tombstones a semi-enjoyable bit of neo-noir pulp? Maybe on
the surface. Just be careful digging much deeper. You might be disappointed with how little you uncover.
Ex-NYPD cop turned unlicensed private investigator Matt Scudder (Liam Neeson, Taken, Non-Stop) operates just outside the law, helping those in need and doing what the police are unable or unwilling to do. When Scudder reluctantly agrees
to help heroin trafficker Kenny Kristo (Dan Stevens, The Guest) hunt down the men who kidnapped and brutally murdered his wife, the PI soon learns this isn't the first time the killers have committed this sort of twisted crime, nor does he
anticipate it to be the last. Blurring the lines between right and wrong, Scudder races to track the deviants through the backstreets of New York City before they kill again.
Frank's hodgepodge tone and style doesn't really lend itself to tight pacing, with Tombstones veering from gripping, suspenseful, at-times unsettling first act to sleepy, erratic second to over-cranked, underwhelming third. Neeson weathers the
wibbli-wobbliness well enough, though, and his Scudder is the best thing the film has to offer. Rather than resort to action-driven Taken fisticuffs, or elevating Scudder to nigh-invincible, bullet-dodging superhero, the streetwise ex-cop proceeds
like a man acutely aware of his own mortality; a recognition his involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous serves to highlight (albeit to overbearing ends). A tortured soul paying self-imposed penance for a tragic shooting, Neeson's PI is a thinking man's
detective; emphasis on detective, piecing together clues, following leads and closing in on the killers without much in the way of shootouts, car chases or 'splosions.
The central mystery, meanwhile, is handled haphazardly, initially cloaking the serial killers in shadow but soon, for no real reason, placing them front and center, with scenes designed to provide insight into their methods and madness but accomplishing
no such thing. It's a strange shift that doesn't pan out in any meaningful or intriguing way; a bait-and-switch without the switch that's more jarring than involving. Also scattered across Scudder's investigation is a host of quirky dime-novel supporting
players -- an anemic, computer-savvy teen-charity case named TJ (Brian "Astro" Bradley) who's dead-set on becoming Scudder's assistant, a tweaked out heroin addict (Boyd Holbrook) in love with his brother's dead wife, a van full of frat-boy DEA agents, a
shady groundskeeper (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) fascinated with pigeons, and a Russian gangster (Sebastian Roché) with a catatonic wife, a kidnapped daughter, and a heart of gold -- each of whom is given dark, gritty character traits designed to add texture
and realism to Block's criminal underworld but resulting only in taking thinly veiled genre caricatures way too seriously.
Worse, any prevailing dread dissolves the moment the killers are revealed. Predictability increases, eeriness decreases, and the film's endgame becomes an of course he's not dead! rundown of crime thriller clichés. Bradley's role simultaneously
expands -- TJ is suddenly 8mm's Max California (Joaquin Phoenix) to Scudder's Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) -- and Neeson's AA 12-Stepping is given a prominence that's more leftfield than his lecturing TJ on the danger of carrying a gun (which is
followed by an assault that leaves the now-unarmed TJ in the hospital). And the moral of all the moralizing? Your guess is as good as mine. Tombstones has an undercurrent of self-righteousness without clearly contextualizing the sermon it's
preaching. It doesn't amount to a bad movie. There are dozens of poorly conceived, poorly scripted, poorly shot genre pics lining the racks of your local Redbox kiosk, and this isn't one of them. But there are much better crime thrillers too. A Walk
Among the Tombstones is a decent Friday night rental I suppose, just dial down your expectations and try to avoid looking for plot holes, leaps in logic and missed opportunities. They're too easy to spot.
There's something to Neeson's Matt Scudder; something I wouldn't mind seeing again in future adaptations of Lawrence Block's crime novels. It's Frank's script that fails the film. Not entirely, but still fundamentally, with more borrowed bits than
unconventional stretches and more regurgitation than invention. The third act is particularly disappointing, as A Walk Among the Tombstones falls in step with a hundred other PI thrillers, losing sight of the elements that might have set it apart.
Universal's Blu-ray release is better, albeit only in terms of its terrific AV presentation. Unfortunately, with no significant special features, there's little added value to be had. It's worth a rent, though, so start there.
[CSW] -3.6- I agree with this reviewer:
It's not for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. I would not suggest it for anyone under 16 for violence sequences and their is brief nudity. Liam Neeson never disappoints me. The young man playing T.J. was awesome and I enjoyed the building of
that relationship. There was definitely some bloody violence that will make you cring and it was a little slow in parts, but if you enjoy a complicated story with some good action, I think you'll enjoy it.
[V4.5-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box ?/10.
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