The Marksman: Movie Review

The Marksman: Film Review

Cast: Liam Neeson, Jacob Perez, Teresa Ruiz
Director: Robert Lorenz

In truth, The Marksman isn't a sloppy film.

It's just that it's largely unremarkable, another entrant into Liam Neeson's desire to make action films before he claims to retire one more time.

In this latest though, there are signs that even Neeson's wearying in some of the action sequences as old age catches up to him.

Neeson plays Jim, a recently widowed Marine Force vet, who's behind on ranch payments and facing foreclosure. Every day is spent patrolling a nearby Arizona border fence with Mexico, and every day Jim's heartless enough to call in those trying to make their way across the border, but decent enough to give them water to stave off death.

When Miguel (Perez, largely unchallenged and unchallenging throughout) and his mother flee from the Mexican cartel, disaster strikes. Orphaned Miguel's dying mother makes  Jim promise he'll look after the boy - along with a sack full of cash.

With the Mexican cartel chasing after Miguel and desperate for revenge against Jim, the pair must hightail it from Arizona to Miguel's US-based family before it's too late...

Solid, but unspectacular, The Marksman offers formulaic rote thrills for the genre.

As previously mentioned, Neeson looks wearied and almost exhausted at points of this film, and the growling gruff dialogue afforded him does little to elevate the film beyond its trappings.

Director Lorenz puts together a fairly cohesive film that's relly lacking in the script department as the duo hotfoots it away from by-the-numbers-Mexican villains.

It's depressing in parts to feel like Neeson is simply phoning in the latter parts of his career with an unending stream of variations on his Taken character, but the Marksman does little to alleviate such feelings, and sacrifices character for caricature instead.

Full marks go to the English mechanic whom Neeson's character crosses later on, and whose willingness to simply dismiss Jim's desire for an urgent repair to a shot up vehicle solicited mirth where there shouldn't have been.

Worthy only for an interesting argument over gun ownerships and laws, The Marksman's failings fall squarely on the script's shoulders. It misses the mark way too often and while it's packaged together in a reasonable manner, this made for late night TV movie is a relatively soulless and unemotive slog that really deserves little place in Neeson's catalogue of diminishing returns.