This train-set action-suspense film, the fourth pairing of Liam Neeson and Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra, is very crisp and entertaining right until it derails...a downward trajectory signaled, in fact, by an actual train derailing on the screen. For around an hour and 20 minutes, this is a satisfying and smooth genre exercise: Neeson is in his element as a dourly charismatic Everyman thrust into an extraordinary situation, and Collet-Serra finds several clever ways to stage chase and fight sequences within claustrophobic and crowded passenger cars. The problems arise when the film has to stop accumulating new complications, tensions, and twists and start to tie its improbable plot strands together. The final stretch is heavy on banal revelations (of course Patrick Wilson's cordial cop turns out to be the corrupt one, not Sam Neill as Captain Glowering Red Herring) and heavy-handed sentimentality (Neeson's character surveying the other passengers with grandfatherly warmth; each has learned a life lesson during the ordeal!).

B-

Liam Neeson is the king of the lowrent action films.

B+

This was decent but forgettable much more than Non-Stop and other movies specially because of the ending which is just crap and the reveal was even worse. I think an unknown person would have worked here in terms of twist than a known person from the cast. Neeson is great in here and he can easily continue doing more of these.

6/10

Although The Commuter overreaches a bit on adding complexity to its story, it remains a solid mystery/thriller due to the prescence of Liam Neeson, reigning king of the genre. *B+*


(I'm sorry to here that director Jaume Collet-Serra is being subsumed into the Disney homogenization machine with the upcoming Jungle Cruise. He had a solid little thriller filmography going.)

A serviceable if forgettable thriller. Liam Neeson is Liam Neeson, although for some reason he looked way more tired/winded than he usually does in these action films. I definitely think it has something to do with his age at this point, but I did like the fact that during alot of the fight scenes he was getting his ass kicked at points lol. Anyways, I was entertained while watching this for the most part, but its nothing special. I really wish they had done more with the supporting cast though, especially Sam Neil, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. Serra really felt like was on auto-pilot directing this movie.

C+

The Commuter

This is ok. It's basically Non-Stop, but on a train. Neeson gives it his all as usual, and I like the chap. He gets beaten up a lot here though, lol. The concept is a bit far-fetched and the dialogue for all the characters is weak. But it's a fun 110 minutes, even if it does follow that obvious formula of the villain being that famous guy you saw at the beginning - I mean, why else would they cast him? Sam Neill fails to be a red herring. But Farmiga is still a babe.

C+

The reviews above kind of nail all points already.

I thought this was decent for the most part (too), Serra's style is appealing for this kind of film and Neeson brings our his good game in these type of film he got used to now. But the film also lacks a kind of grandness in the last act, once we've found out who's Prin the tying up the ends part fizzles and it brought the film down to the levels of mediocrity. Still not bad overall, I was pretty into it for the larger part, just it didn't reach the thrills of The Shallows and Non-Stop (which The Commuter very much feels like a worse sequel of in sorts) either.

C+

THE COMMUTER

I rented this Friday and was entertained. It's Non-Stop on a train but whatever. Liam Neeson sells the role and it's way better than Taken 3. I thought the story was interesting and the action okay. It was speeded up which made it look very weird. I liked Vera Farmiga in her limited role as well.

Grade - B

I found this one pretty uninteresting. It's just so generic. I'm sick of Neeson's collaborations with Jaume Collet-Serra. Honestly the only one I liked was Non-Stop which this rehashes less effectively (or maybe it just seems that way because we've already seen this movie). On the other hand I've really dug Collet-Serra's horror/thrillers (Orphan, The Shallows, and to a lesser extent House of Wax). Maybe he should stick to those because his action/thrillers with Neeson are tired.

5/10 (C-)

The best of the three Nelson/Serra collabs I’ve seen (didn’t see Run All Night). That’s not saying much, but I at least thought this was good.

B