Tag Archives: The Commuter

I Don’t Want to Go Out—Week of April 16

Two-word titles available for home viewing this week. Do you want to watch a slick, important movie about that reminds you just how far America has fallen? Spielberg for you. Rather watch that same Liam Neeson movie you’ve grown to need somehow in your life? That’s here, too.

Click the film title for the full review.

The Post

The Commuter

The Screening Room: A Particular Set of Skills

Heavy hitters this week: Oscar contenders and people who just hit hard. We talk through The Post, The Commuter, Jane and what’s new in home entertainment.

Listen to the podcast HERE.

Crazy Train

The Commuter

by Hope Madden

In 2014, Jaume Collet-Serra directed Non-Stop, a Liam Neeson thriller that saw the down-on-his-luck Irishman with a particular set of skills trapped on a speeding vehicle with a killer, a mystery, and an outside force looking to pin some wrongdoing on him.

In 2018, Jaume Collet-Serra directed The Commuter. Same movie. Train this time.

This go-round, happily married devoted father Michael MacCauley (Neeson) gets chatted up by the lovely and mysterious Joanna (Vera Farmiga) as he heads home on his nightly commute. She poses a question: would you do one little thing—something you are uniquely qualified to do—if it landed you 100k and you had no idea of the consequences?

Well, it’s not a game and next thing you know he’s dragging his lanky frame up and down the train cars trying to find a mysterious person with a mysterious bag before his family is nabbed or someone else gets killed.

How many times do we have to see this movie? We get it, Neeson is not a man to be messed with. He’s savvy, noble and he can take a punch.

Farmiga’s always a welcome sight, plus Sam Neill and Patrick Wilson contribute as they can. But mainly it’s just you, Neeson and a host of stereotypes trying to test your mystery-solving skills but not your patience.

At its best, The Commuter is a B-movie popcorn-munching ode to the forgotten middle class good guy. At its worst, a boldly predictable waste of talent littered with plot holes and weak CGI.

It’s a Liam Neeson movie. What do you want?