The Marksman (M, 108 minutes)
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Three stars
The streets of my hometown were overrun last week with a film crew shooting a car chase for a new Liam Neeson film.
The big man himself was nowhere to be seen. The stunt man driving Neeson's car was wearing a dead-eyed Liam Neeson mask.
But just the second and third degree of separation was, for many, excitement enough.
Irish actor Liam Neeson became an unlikely action and thriller hero and leading man late in his career's second act.
He appears to be successor to Clint Eastwood's graceful ageing on-screen tough guy (though Clint still has a few good films left in him).
He has done it all - trash mini-series, obscure art house, big budget serious.
He is a kids toy as Qui-Gon Jin from Star Wars The Phantom Menace. He was heartbreakingly adorable bringing up his late wife's son in Love Actually.
With the release of Taken in 2008, suddenly he was Jason Statham and Stallone and Charles Bronson rolled into one.
He's worked solidly since with producers hoping for just a touch of that film's charm on audiences.
The Marksman of this film is former Marine turned cattle rancher Jim (Liam Neeson).
Jim's property sits along the Mexican-Arizona border and as he does his rounds with beloved dog Jackson, he radios in sightings of illegal border-crossers.
It's more for their own protection as there are hundreds miles of desert and no water ahead of them.
Jim is mourning the recent loss of his wife, but his step-daughter, an agent with the border patrol, is around to take him home from bars and make sure he's eaten.
One day his quiet life of feeding his cattle and drinking himself to sleep is interrupted when a mother and her young son step in front of his truck, having just broken through the border fence and onto his property.
The mother Rosa (Teresa Ruiz) and her son Miguel (Jacob Perez) are running from the Mexican drug cartel that Rosa's brother has stolen a bag of money from.
The Cartel have followed the pair as far as the border and when they pull a gun on the young mother and child, Jim reluctantly finds himself their defender.
When Rosa dies in the crossfire, Jim takes to the road with Miguel, having made a promise to the dying woman to get her son across the country to the safety of relatives in Chicago.
The Marksman has the feel of a Clint Eastwood film - the curmudgeonly old veteran comes to the rescue of the damsel and her boy.
Unfortunately though, there isn't much substance in the screenplay by Chris Charles, Danny Kravitz and Robert Lorenz to flesh out the idea.
The Marksman has the feel of a Clint Eastwood film - the curmudgeonly old veteran comes to the rescue of the damsel and her boy.
We don't get much of a sense of Jim, nor of Manny, despite them crossing the country together.
Taciturn is a good mood on Liam Neeson, but the script doesn't allow for much in the way of character development or expositional dialogue.
Is his motivation guilt, or Rosa's bag of money?
But the schtick of the gruff tough guy and the kid under their wing has made for some wonderful films.
Despite this being a fairly average film, this dynamic and Neeson's performance make this film very watchable, even on repeat viewings.
Director Robert Loren produced a handful of Clint Eastwood films, including Gran Torino, possibly the best of the gruff babysitter genre.