A Walk Among the Tombstones

As a forewarning, this review will be rather short as this is the second Liam-Neeson-being-a-badass movie we have gotten this year.

And if I'm being forward, it's not the better of the two.

A Walk Among the Tombstones is more of a detective thriller than anything else, not necessarily featuring Liam Neeson as the guy racking up the kills like we are used to seeing. The premise of the story is that Matt Scudder (Neeson) used to be a cop until a tragic event forced him to walk away from the job. He is now a private investigator of sorts but one with "a very special set of skills", mind you. He begins to investigate the abductions and gruesome murders of some females in New York City and thus the detective case begins.

The premise of the film reads exactly like the movie plays; while there is nothing inherently wrong or bad with it, it comes across as something lacking originality and any sort of flavor of its own. Tombstones is based on a novel that I imagine is a bit of the same way. Is it a good read? Yeah, sure. But will you remember it 6 months down the road once you have already gone through 4-5 other books in the meantime? Not at all. And the same goes for this film. While certain movies of Neeson's are ones that stick with you (Taken, and The Grey) and some are really fun one-time views (this year's Non-Stop), Tombstones ends up being a movie that you were intrigued enough while you watched it, but that you could have done without seeing.

Now, now, Liam. You'll get your dessert once you eat your veggies!
No need to pout!

"You killed the wolf with tape and shooters?"

I'm concentrating hard to think about things that I specifically didn't like about Tombstones and really only two things come to mind. The first was the aforementioned lack of originality in a genre that, let's be honest, is about as repetitive as they come at times. But what I noticed more than anything, and it happened on at least three or four occasions, was some very awkward script lines. There are a few scenes in the film where the conversation just doesn't go where you would naturally expect or some character drops a line that seems so out of place that even the other actors on screen seem to be thinking, "WTF?". Truth be told, I'm not sure if this is a problem unique to the film itself, or if it's actual dialogue from the novel. Either way, I didn't understand the absurdity of it at times.

The film has the tagline, "People are afraid of all the wrong things" which seems to be the only reason at all that the movie was set in 1999 (which I am guessing the book was as well). The movie awkwardly places an overemphasis on the Y2K bug that we were all mildly worried about in order to feed into the above mantra. It was another oddity that, I understand the reasoning for it, but it was completely overdone. Every character seems to be reading a newspaper about Y2K and all news stations are reporting about it, blah, blah, blah. Were we really that worried back then? It sure didn't seem like it to me.

Qui-Gon? You're looking a little rough there...

Other than those few things, the film is well orchestrated and takes the audience on an intriguing sleuthing trip that goes to some really dark, and quite frankly, disturbing places. There is a reason the movie is rated R and between this film and No Good Deed last week, I'm just generally creeped out by the human population now. The supporting cast are all decent enough with their miniscule amount of characterization with a young, homeless boy, TJ being the highlight. Neeson takes him under his wing as it's obvious the kid is very smart and they form a sort of partnership by the end of it all. Neeson is once again, on point. I'm not sure that there will really ever be a film where Neeson is labeled as a CON. His character, Scudder, has a tragic background, but is not any deeper than any of his other characters, and is a far cry from his character in The Grey (can you tell that I just absolutely adore that movie?). But for the type of movie that this is, his lack of character development suffices.

A Walk Among the Tombstones gets the consensus that I slap on many a film: it's not bad by any means, it's just not memorable. Sometimes, as an audience member, that's all you're looking for. Personally, whenever I enter a new Neeson film, I'm looking for another strong notch in his repertoire. Tombstones isn't the strongest of those notches, but it's also no where near as awful as the s**t show that was Taken 2.

Talk about a movie that needs to be taken to the grave...

CONS:

• Lacks originality
• Some really odd and awkwardly scripted dialogue exchanges. Again, not sure if this is the novel or the film, but the fact remains that they are still there
• The consistent focus on Y2K was excessive and I'm surprised they couldn't have found a way to update their "threat" to something more modern
• I would say that at nearly two hours, it was overly long

PROS:

• Neeson, per usual
• The supporting cast is mostly window dressing except for TJ who brings some much needed humor to the event
• An intriguing detective story that deals with some really dark subject matter. Makes you want to root for Neeson all the more
• Some well filmed action/struggle scenes

Rath's Review Score: 6.5/10