Review of A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) by Patrick L — 22 Dec 2014

"It is a violent and daunting film with Liam Neeson giving one of his best performances".

Movie Review: A Walk Among the Tombstones.

Date Viewed: September 22 2014.

Directed By Scott Frank (The Lookout).

Screenplay By Scott Frank, Based on the novel by Lawrence Block.

Starring: Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens, Boyd Holbrook, Whitney Able, David Harbour, Sebastian Roche, Olafur Darri Olafsson, Stephanie Andujar, Adam David Thompson, Brian "Astro" Bradley and Eric Nielsen.

"A Walk Among the Tombstones" can only be described as a grim crime thriller. Written and Directed by Scott Frank (The Lookout), "Tombstones" is not another "Taken". It is a violent and daunting film with Liam Neeson giving one of his best performances since "The Grey". He plays Matt Scudder, the protagonist of 17 novels written by crime novelist Lawrence Block. Jeff Bridges played Scudder nearly 30 years ago in "8 Million Ways to Die". There are no one-liners or even attempts at comic relief and the body count is not high, it's just in the double digits.

Mostly set in 1999 (featuring references of the impending doom of Y2K), Scudder (Neeson) is a former NYPD cop who is still haunted by the event that forced him to leave the force. He is a recovering alcoholic and he is now an unlicensed private investigator. He takes on cases that no one would touch, he does favors for people and they give him gifts. Scudder is soon approached by the Kristo brothers, a drug dealer named Kenny (Dan Stevens, formerly of "Downton Abbey") and an artist named Peter (Boyd Holbrook) who previously met him at an AA meeting.

Kenny wants Scudder to go after the men who killed his wife (who was returned to him in little pieces). The killers are a couple of psychopaths named Ray (David Harbour) and Albert (Adam David Thompson) and Kenny wants Scudder to bring them back to him so he can do to them what they did to his wife. There are some flaws in "A Walk Among the Tombstones", Scott Frank's decision to use a voiceover reciting the 12-step program during the climax is distracting and unnecessary and Scudder's friendship with a homeless kid named TJ (Brian "Astro" Bradley), I thought was needless to the story. It is at times uncomfortable to watch but "A Walk Among the Tombstones" is a well-made crime thriller about a wounded warrior who isn't afraid of facing death.

This is not a date movie for sure. "Tombstones" is the vein of "Silence of the Lambs", it is a nasty thriller with twisted villains and grisly scenes of torture. Nevertheless, it is a stylish film noir with a compelling performance from Neeson.