Blacklight (2022) Review!!

Synopsis – Travis Block is a government operative coming to terms with his shadowy past. When he discovers a plot targeting U.S. citizens, Block finds himself in the crosshairs of the FBI director he once helped protect.

My Take – Just another year, just another month and just another weekend which sees Liam Neeson pulls out his particular set of skills and goes to work on bad guys, in order to protect his family or just anybody in the vicinity.

Ever since Taken released fourteen years ago and turned him into one of the most unlikely action stars around, the 69 years old Northern Irish actor has been playing almost the same character in solo action ventures, with little variations of course, but without the need to invest too deeply after all they all adhered to the familiar popcorn entertainment formula.

However, this hasn’t been the case of his last three releases, Honest Thief, The Marksman and The Ice Road, films that I have disliked more with each passing day, and showed clear signs of diminishing interest from the veteran itself, and a growing habit of picking up mediocre seldom fun action thrillers to star in. Sadly, his latest too is by the numbers at its maximum.

Unsurprising, considering that it re-teams Neeson with Mark Williams, who directed Honest Thief (2020) and produced The Marksman (2021), resulting in yet another tepid action thriller, that has hardly anything new or interesting. Instead this is the worst kind of bad film.

Backed by a seemingly conspiracy themed plot that fizzles out half way through due to its slow pacing, and then goes on to wrap things in such a sloppy manner that you are just left with regret for your wasted 104 minutes.

As a fan, I do feel Neeson still has a few more action films left in him, all he needs is a right script and a filmmaker to guide him like Run All Night (2015), The Commuter (2018), and Cold Pursuit (2019) did.

The story follows Travis Block (Liam Neeson), an off the books FBI agent who specializes in removing undercover operatives after their covers have been blown and placed in dangerous situations. In fact, he’s so good at his job that Gabriel Robinson (Aidan Quinn), the head of the FBI and his Vietnam War comrade, won’t let him retire, much to the detriment of Travis’ relationship with his daughter Amanda (Claire van der Boom) and his granddaughter Natalie.

But when a young undercover agent named Dusty Crane (Taylor John Smith) is found attempting to contact Mira Jones (Emmy Raver-Lampman), a young journalist, in order to expose top-secret information about a shadowy FBI operation, Travis is tasked to stop him.

That is until he himself is obligated to give a closer look at the critical secrets that Robinson has been hiding from him. Of course soon it all becomes personal with Travis forced to go up against a pair of men commissioned by Robinson to keep his old friend quiet.

Even by Liam Neeson action thriller standards, the stakes are incredibly low here, as director Williams and his co-writers, Nick May and Brandon Reavis keeps everything rudimentary simple, allowing the narrative to play out like a run-of-the-mill action thriller and follow the familiar archetypes of the morally-gray protagonist, the wronged operative, and the truth-seeking journalist. They aren’t bothered about exploring the depths of the shady government conspiracy at the film’s center, or tie it back to the highly charged political climate captured in those opening sequences.

Here, they only seem able to commit to a flat political messaging regarding hard-hitting journalism swooping in to save the day, casting both hair-raising action and meaningful character decisions to the wayside. Instead they are more interested in offering up repetitious, dialogue-driven scenes that deliver only the shallowest of exposition and advance the story at a sluggish pace.

We get multiple, go-nowhere scenes of Travis declaring that he wants out of the FBI, Natalie telling Travis that he’s too paranoid to spend time with his granddaughter, and Mira insisting that she has a knockout story to her superiors despite having no real proof or details. Nearly all of these scenes play out in similar fashion for more than half of the run time, leaving you hoping that this is all just a built up for the inevitable action-driven showdown.

In that department too the film is a disappointment, at least in comparison to Neeson‘s previous action thrillers. After taking such a strangely long time to wind up Travis, the film just struggles to become a shiny action flick, featuring a couple of high-octane, street-obliterating car crashes, but the whole thing just feels hollow and exhausted.

Without a doubt, Liam Neeson is the only thing carrying this film, as he assumes the garb of Travis Block fairly comfortably, playing a man torn between carrying out his orders and spending more quality time with his family. But of course, it would have been more fun to see him kicking ass and making better creative choices at the same time.

Aidan Quinn is typical in his performance, but his villain role is never menacing enough to seem like a threat. Emmy Raver-Lampman and Taylor John Smith play their parts fairly well, and are given more opportunity to showcase themselves. Claire van der Boom is wasted in a small role, while Melanie Jarnson leaves a lasting impression in a small role. On the whole, ‘Blacklight’ is a clunky formulaic thriller letdown by its shoddy storytelling.