Run All Night

This quality dramatic family background story is spiced up with decent action and the Collet-Serra-Neeson trilogy has a very impressive finale. Bad luck and coincidence play the leading role, together with a boozy Santa suffering from remorse. The fantastic Ed Harris’s pep talks with Liam Neeson commands respect and his view on things makes sense. By coincidence, the evil Gravedigger is also the main protagonist who leaves piles of dead bodies lying in pools of blood, this time for justifiable (but selfish) reasons. Kinnaman Jr. is really fine, thinks for himself and doesn’t become too annoying during the story (which is important). A perfect action movie that I would gladly watch again. (29/04/2015)

Liam Neeson has basically fallen into the category of an action hero who tries to protect his family or someone close to him at all costs. But he's an interesting actor and I'm enjoying it for the umpteenth time. Mainly because this time his character is a little different, even if the ending takes another sentimental turn. (28/06/2015)

Standard four-star Liam Neeson flick, but I can't help being slightly disappointed. With an attractive plot, the film had the makings of the action movie of the year, but it didn't happen. What didn't really impress me here was Ed Harris, a poor choice of villain (no intense, threatening or intelligent dialogue came out of his mouth and he's too old to fight, something Jaume Collet-Serra deprived us of). I even missed an intelligent detective here (too bad Forest Whitaker wasn't in this instead of Taken 3). The serving of action comes more or less after 45 minutes and has a lot to offer. Some interesting fights finally in decent editing and without shaky camerawork, decent shootouts, chases, the occasional nice head shot (not overly brutal though) and an excellent atmospheric scene in a tenement building, which was the biggest highlight of the film, definitely spiced up by the assassin Common. The old-school shotgun finale doesn't disappoint either. Good, but could have done with a bit more. 75% (22/04/2015)

Neeson's already in his standard box, and Serra has definitely parked himself in the position of a decent thriller craftsman. The result is improved a lot by the remaining ensemble cast, and in turn, dragged down by the fact that most of the dialogue speeches in the second half are merely empty and stretch the film to an unsympathetic length. (08/07/2015)

The pitting of Ed Harris against Liam Neeson is the best thing in this film. And to make it into guys-only entertainment par excellence, casting Vincent D'Onofrio and Nick Nolte as their sidekicks was an equally fortunate choice. But it does not change the fact that: 1) almost all of the characters are nut-jobs who literally deserve to die, 2) it is once again based on a clearly defined genre template and 3) it focuses more on superficial formal effectiveness than on telling an honest crime drama such as We Own the Night. Now that was a genre movie deserving of four stars in my opinion. And it doesn’t lack shootouts or an exciting car chase. (22/04/2015)