I don't do many movie reviews on this blog, which bothers me, and I just got this film on Blu ray, so here we go.
Something this film does really well in it's opening act is establish the characters as characters with history, there is a believable friendship between Liam Neeson's Jimmy and Ed Harris' Shawn, and Neeson sells the man with nothing left in his life but regret in a tragically convincing way. Like wise Joel Kinnaman does a decent job as the man trying to escape the sins of his father and protect his family from the truth, these characters feel like people, which is something that is very good for the film, as these are people you can understand, you can get behind. Something else this film does is what I call guitar string tension, when not a lot is actually happening but you know it's coming, whatever it is, and the tension just winds up tighter and tighter until it finally snaps and shit hits the fan. this happens a couple of times in the film, and the film as a whole has a very tense feeling to it that rarely lets up. What also rarely lets up is the pace, this is a film that doesn't stop, While I do like this pace, I do have questions about some of the film's direction. In Run All Night the camera sometimes pauses and literally flies across the city to a different character, while this is something I personally haven't seen in a film before, it's also something I personally don't much care for. The film also sometimes has these weird out of place shots of New York, showing things like passing police cars and cabs and homeless people sleeping rough. neither of these are particularly frequent in the film, but they're something that's a bit of a head scratcher when they happen.
Run All Night has some fun action scenes, while it starts off with a not so amazing car chase, there is an awesome fight in an apartment building, and an awesome shootout in a forest near the end of the film, which has 1 shot in it that I love, I don't usually love individual shots, but this shot is awesome, and I love shots like it. The film's 2 biggest fight scenes, the Apartment fight and the forest Shootout, are really fun to watch, both of which do however involve a character I have mixed feelings on; a hitman played by Common. What I like I his cold, remorseless nature, stabbing a cop in the neck with no shits given, he's like a machine, that is also something I am not a huge fan of, the emotionless, hyper efficient hitman isn't something that this film really needed, and while he is certainly fun to watch in action, he has weird almost sci fi equipment, for example a night vision eye piece that looks like an eye piece from a Ghost Recon or something. It may not be too ludicrous, but it is odd. his distracting resemblance to the T800 aside, the fights are really fun to watch. Supporting characters are bearable, but forgettable for the most part. Vincent D'onofrio plays an antagonistic cop who is a serviceable addition to the line up, unlike in Jurassic World, where I couldn't stand him. And Boyd Holbrook gives a very un-nerving performance as Shawn's unstable drug addicted son. Kinnaman's family on the other hand are forgettable, and feel more like plot devices than characters, they don't really add anything to the film, especially in a film with people like Ed Harris and Liam Neeson.
Though some people may joke that this is just Taken 9, this is actually an enjoyable movie to watch. it's not brilliant, it has mostly forgettable side characters and some odd choices with cinematography and editing, it has very good main characters that are well established, some fun action scenes, a nonstop pace and excellent tension, it's not the smartest crime film ever, but it's not trying to be, it is what it is, which is a very enjoyable crime thriller that I do say is worth taking a look at.
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