At this point in his career, I have decided that it is both easier and more entertaining to pretend that Liam Neeson no longer makes standalone movies. Instead – and I really urge you to do the same thing – I like to view every new film he makes as simply the latest episode of a long-running series about a hapless man called Liam Neeson who just absolutely stinks at looking after his children for a single day without any of them being plunged into mortal danger.
The series starts with Liam Neeson’s daughter getting kidnapped (Taken), before his wife gets kidnapped (Taken 2), he’s falsely accused of murder (Taken 3), he’s trapped on a plane where people die every 20 minutes (Non-Stop), his son is killed (Cold Pursuit), and then he visits the arctic for a nice relaxing break, only to end up being forced into a situation where he has to murder a bunch of wolves with some bottles taped to his fists (The Grey). Oh, Liam Neeson! However will they suffer next?
Well, now we have the answer. The latest episode of Liam Neeson: Unlucky Dad is called Retribution. And, yes, while it might have the sort of generic one-word name that makes you believe it was picked out of a tombola barrel labelled “Screw it, this’ll do”, Retribution’s premise is golden. In Retribution, you see, Liam Neeson drives his family around in a car. But if he stops driving them around in his car, they’ll explode. The Retribution trailer dropped this week. Please, let me show you some highlights.
Here’s Liam Neeson: Unlucky Dad, driving his family around in a car. Everything is going great until he receives a phone call, presumably from the ghost of Dennis Hopper, telling him that all the seats are pressure-rigged with bombs, and the car will explode if anyone gets out. However, despite the numerous times that nearly identical things have happened to his family, Liam Neeson dismisses the call as a hoax and hangs up.
And this is a mistake because, as soon as he does, the car opposite him blows up. This not only proves that the guy on the phone is telling the truth, but also that the guy on the phone must have apparently rigged every parked car in the city with a bomb, just so that something in Liam Neeson’s line of sight can explode, on the off-chance that he initially writes off the threat as a hoax and requires a visual demonstration. If nothing else, this guy is diligent.
Newly convinced that his family will explode if he stops driving them around, Liam Neeson follows the bomber’s instructions and goes to meet Matthew Modine, who describes himself in the trailer as Liam Neeson’s best friend, which is very sweet. But the bomber tells Liam Neeson to kill Matthew Modine, otherwise it’s brum-brum boom-boom time. However, this is the red line that Liam Neeson cannot cross. He refuses.
So the bomber blows up Matthew Modine’s car instead, and says “You’re a murderer now” to Liam Neeson. Even though he isn’t. And this is where the plot of the film starts to become slightly unclear. Is this the bomber’s whole plan? To a) try and frame Liam Neeson for a series of murders and then b) when Liam Neeson refuses, to murder them himself anyway? Because that’s a crap plan.
That just means that Liam Neeson only has to drive his car quite near some other exploding cars for a few hours. It’s like a murder safari. It could be worse, is all I’m saying.
