In mid-July, Netflix UK released a bunch of ignored 2018 movies onto its library, and many of them are proving hits. After Mortal Engines and Bastille Day stormed up the movie rankings, another film from that pre-pandemic year has become a hit with viewers.
This movie is The Commuter and it has an all-star cast, with star Liam Neeson joined by Florence Pugh, Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Jonathan Banks, Sam Neill, Elizabeth McGovern, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Damson Idris and Letitia Wright. Many have rather minor roles.
The Commuter follows Neeson's Michael MacCauley, an insurance agent who used to work as a police officer. On his morning commute into New York City, a stranger offers him an easy job: locate someone on the train and recover a stolen item for $100,000. While this sounds like easy money to the cash-strapped man, he discovers it's his first step into a twisted and sordid plot.
Given that this movie came out in 2016, lots of the big-name actors in it weren't as recognizable then as they are now. Damson Idris, for example, hadn't yet starred in the hugely popular drama Snowfall, and Kingsley Ben-Adir still had Peaky Blinders, The OA, High Fidelity and One Night in Miami ahead of him (with the actor also set to play one version of Ken in the upcoming Barbie).
That's also the case for Florence Pugh. While she's now a huge star in films like Midsommar, Little Women, Don't Worry Darling and Black Widow, in 2016 she'd only been in two previous features: The Falling and Lady Macbeth. While her relatively minor role as a passenger in The Commuter wasn't set to propel her to stardom, it was only the next year that'd see her in two of her biggest roles, Midsommar and Little Women.
Even director Jaume Collet-Serra has seen more success since The Commuter, as his two films since then have been Disney's Jungle Crusie and Warner Bros.' Black Adam.
The Commuter fell under the radar a little bit upon its release, with critics pointing to it being just another one of the many low-budget action movies that star Neeson tended to churn out (other movies include Non-Stop, Run All Night, Cold Pursuit and Honest Thief, to name just a few).
However, the movie had fans too, making a profit around the world and sitting at roughly 50% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing. The Guardian called the movie "a bonkers pleasure", giving it three stars out of five.
You can find out for yourself whether The Commuter is a hidden gem that deserves a rediscovery, or just a generic action movie worth sleeping on, since it's easy to stream on Netflix now.
