Jimmy Conlon (Liam Neeson) is a washed-up gangster heavy, more concerned about his next drink than his next job.
When his estranged son Mike (Joel Kinnaman), who wants nothing to do with the Mob, witnesses a murder being committed, he becomes a target. In order to save Mike’s life, Jimmy has to kill the son of Mob boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). Because they are lifelong friends and partners, Jimmy tries to explain the situation to Shawn, but Shawn sets his army of thugs on Conlon and his son. Now the two of them must Run All Night.
We say, “It’s the same as all the rest of Neeson’s movies.”
HOWE: Every time I hear the title of this movie Run All Night, all I can picture is Lionel Richie in his white suit with the cuffs rolled up. Some movies have bad titles, making them sound even worse than the premise involved and this title is pretty bad. The movie itself isn’t that great either. What is it with Neeson making the same movie over and over again and just changing the title? This could easily have been called Taken 4. He’s starting to get typecast as the drunken hard man with some speciality moves and I’m getting really fed up with it. I thought he had turned the corner with the great film from last year A Walk Among the Tombstones.
TAYLOR: I’m going to disagree with you a bit. Although Neeson plays another tough guy distributing home-made justice, as per usual, at least this time he was washed-up, beaten and downright human. As he did in Tombstones, he plays an age appropriate role. We liked Neeson in Tombstones because he got knocked down and stayed down.
Run All Night has him, well, running all night. He is somewhere between the complete believability of Tombstones and the complete hogwash of Taken.
I didn’t mind Run All Night. If anything was wrong with it, it was the overbearing angst of the younger Conlon, played by Kinnaman. I think he laid it on a bit thick.
HOWE: If you are looking for an action packed movie, something that doesn’t require that much attention or you are fed up with watching good Oscar nominated movies, then this is the film for you. There’s even a car chase, although it’s a pretty crap one.
TAYLOR: I would think that a film called Run All Night would have had a bit more chasing. I did like the cinematography and it was fun to run around New York City at night, hit some all-night diners, make deals with dirty cops. I will say that the Conlons seemed to nearly get caught a high number of times and sometimes got away too easily, from the thugs or police. But the things I was supposed to care about, for instance the relationship between the Conlons, was a little too underdeveloped to be effective.
– Taylor gives Run All Night 2.5 scotch on the rocks out of 5.
– Howe gives it 2 crucifixes out of 5.
Reel Reviews with Brian Taylor and Peter Howe appears in The Morning Star every Friday and Sunday.
