Nerd Movie Reviews

A Walk Among the Tombstones Review #AWalkAmongtheTombstones

Not exactly a tiptoe through the tulips.

I often say things like “I am a fan of so and so” or “I enjoy this persons movies” typically as a prelude before explaining exactly why I hate that persons latest role or movie.  Rather then say I am a fan of Liam Neeson I am going to say I am a fan of Liam Neeson when he plays the right role.  What is that role you ask?  That role is a desperate loser on the dirty end of the poo stick of life desperately trying to save someone or find some kind of redemption.  It is very specifically NOT when he is playing any form of Jedi or other super James Bond Superman.  He was good as a desperate loser in the Grey.  He sucked as an indestructible super spy in Taken 2.  He was good as an alcoholic loser in Non Stop.  He sucked as an admiral in Battleship.  So I am a fan of his in the right role.

So was this the right role for him?  Yes.  He plays an ex alcoholic ex cop trying to do the right thing in a bad situation.  I enjoyed his character a lot.  Superman is hard to cheer for when you know there is a limited list of material in the universe that can actually hurt him but seeing Liam Neesons character get his guts stomped out but still keep on struggling makes us identify with him more and more (image courtesy of the Superman t shirt category).  I worry for the future of cinema based on the whole anti-bullying campaign kids are subjected to these days.  You can’t really root for the underdog unless you have been forced to eat dirt off the ground by a kid three years and 40 pounds heavier than you.  Oh well.  Sorry kids you are being raised to be wimps.

So how about the film, Dave?  Decent but not great.  This movie didn’t just drink the noir punch; it hooked a tanker truck full of noir punch to it’s food hole and turned the spigot to full blast until dark angsty crime drama was gushing from every pore and orifice.  There was not a single character in this film that couldn’t have shifted from good to bad at the drop of a hat except for maybe the 14 year old girl.  The film is basically a Scooby Doo mystery complete with a big chunk of deus ex machina but there is a reason we love good mysteries.  However the mystery was solved with the linear approach normally reserved for drawing lines from point A to point B.  No real twists and no real depth.  “Some guys are kidnapping and killing women.  Now we find them by finding out who their next victim is.  Now we end the film.”

The villains are comically evil and are given no reason to be so.  I’m not looking for a in depth character study but the slightest whiff of motivation would have kept them from being the real life versions of Boris Badenov.  Instead they are evil because…well because they are evil.  One talks a lot and the other has an evil beard.  They like to torture and murder women because they are white males and they might be gay but we can’t bother to confirm any of that.  Understanding villains is as important as understanding heroes but this film decided to focus on other things.

Oh, yeah.  If the idea or images of women and young girls being kidnapped, tortured, mutilated, and killed bothers you congratulations for being a decent human that I would be willing to visit my house or possibly live in my town.  Also you might find aspects of the film truly disturbing (and if those images don’t bother you have fun on DeviantArt and/or the Megans Law website).  This film is rated R but not for any of the cool reasons.

All that being said it was not worthless.  I enjoyed Liam’s character and his teenage sidekick was reasonably cool.  The action was brutal and if you like dark stories forgetaboutit.  There was an engagement that came from the fact you really didn’t have any idea how this film was going to end.  Sure, they could catch the killers and go skipping off to a picnic in the park but based on the tone there was an equally good chance that the killers could get away after killing everyone Liam knew and leave him a drunken, broken husk of a man.  When a story doesn’t transmit the inevitable ending in every form of communication known to mankind (including Morse code and smoke signals) that is a good way to keep the audience engaged if only to learn what actually happened.

The very brief story summary.  Matt Scudder is an ex cop and alcoholic who is hired to find the killers of the wife of a drug dealer.  He gets help from a kid and finds out the bad guys have killed many women and specialize in wives of drug dealers.  He more or less stumbles around until he finds a guy in a graveyard who points him in the right direction but has to wait for them to kidnap someone else.  Bad thing happen.

So worth seeing?  Sure, if you want something gritty and dark.  This is not a feel good film.  However my one real complaint has to do with the film title.  When you see something like “A Walk Among the Tombstones” you kind of hope and expect the title to be an analogy for the main character walking with death as his constant companion.  Instead he spends a lot of time in a graveyard walking among tombstones.  It’s like if you did a movie titled “God is my Co-Pilot” and have it be about a pilot who has the All Mighty drinking coffee in the seat next to him in the cockpit.  I have often bitched about films that have titles that have no relation to the actual movie (Abduction) but I’m not saying everything has to be totally literal.  Some metaphor is allowed.  Otherwise 12 Monkeys would have had a lot more feces throwing.

So I’ll say if there is nothing else on go see this film.  It’s not bad nor is it insulting to your intelligence.  It will be a lot better if you make up a backstory for the two killers (in my version one was abducted by aliens and spent 15 years on the probulator and the others father told him the thing between his legs was called a vagina as a 12 year practical joke) to give them some motivation.  It’s not awesome however so if you can see it cheap go for it.  3 of 5 phasers. 

the Infamous Dave Inman @NerdKungFu