It’s common knowledge among movie buffs or Neeson fans that the Northern Irish nearly 70 year old loves January as a release date and her wasn’t about to let us down. 
 
“There are three things that are inevitable in life: death, taxes and Liam Neeson movies in January.”

January 26, 2021 | Full Review…

Asher Luberto
 
 

The Marksman hit top spot in North America for it’s first 2 weekends and has found favour with audiences even if the critics are bagging it out.

Robert Lorenz directs and he has chosen his projects well as a producer. Mystic River, Letters from Iwo Jima, Invictus, American Sniper
 
 As a chief director he’s really only had 2 films which is ‘Trouble With the Curve’ and this one, ‘the Marksman’. Both have had mixed with reviews with critics but have found decent favour with the general audience. 
 
 For the Marksman the ‘tomatometer’ or critics favourable percentage sits at 34% whereas audience favourability sits at 86%. That’s a startk contrast. The difference as I see it is that the general audience didn’t feel the need to pick this apart. Especially in a time when big name movies are few and far between.
 
 Lorenz is a long time Clint Eastwood collaborator and this feels much like an Eastwood film but perhaps a bit less grizzled. With Neeson you don’t have to chop through as many hardened layers to get to the “heart of gold” as you do with Clint. 

Let me read the synopsis verbatim from Rotten Tomatoes – “Hardened Arizona rancher Jim Hanson (Liam Neeson) simply wants to be left alone as he fends off eviction notices and tries to make a living on an isolated stretch of borderland. But everything changes when Hanson, an ex-Marine sharpshooter, witnesses 11-year-old migrant Miguel (Jacob Perez) fleeing with his mother Rosa (Teresa Ruiz) from drug cartel assassins led by the ruthless Mauricio (Juan Pablo Raba). After being caught in a shoot-out, a dying Rosa begs Jim to take her son to safety to her family in Chicago. Defying his cop daughter Sarah (Katheryn Winnick), Jim sneaks Miguel out of the local U.S. Customs and Border Patrol station and together, they hit the road with the group of killers in pursuit. Jim and Miguel slowly begin to overcome their differences and begin to forge an unlikely friendship, while Mauricio and his fellow assassins blaze a cold-blooded trail, hot on their heels. When they finally meet on a Midwestern farm, a fight to the death ensues as Jim uses his military skills and code of honour to defend the boy he's come to love.”

It's Not a great movie but it’s also not overweight and heavy with expectations and a director’s desire to meet those expectations. It just is – a simply plotted, small cast action drama. Dialogue is light. The whole film spans only a couple of days and the kid protagonist Miguel had watched his mum get shot to death trying to save him, while Liam was on the verge of losing his ranch to the banks – tired trope that never went anywhere -  so witty banter wasn’t really on the cards and would have felt out of place but a few more deep and meaningful conversations would have gone a long way to helping us to grow more attached to the characters and helped them to grow more believably attached to each other.

Liam Neeson has natural gravitas which made him the perfect choice for this role. He’s not angry Mel Gibson or “hiding in plain sight” Rambo but he is the guy who commands respect just for his presence – if you’re a bad guy you are immediately wary and cautious despite not being too sure of his story.
 
 
 Jacob Perez does a noble job in his role. It wasn’t one of those “holy crap who is this kid?” performances but neither was it meant to be.  He was generally poker faced but this in itself was a performance that would have been tougher to pull off than it looked. I imagine that after going through what he went through his whole world was spinning and trying to come to terms with where he had to go to from there would have been an internal battle that required stoic concentration.
 
 There were a couple of lighter moments though – watching a Clint Eastwood film in the motel – which could be considered an Easter Egg when you think of the director’s history with Clint, and watching Neeson try Pop Tarts for the first time under a bridge, and enjoying them – after reprimanding Miguel for his unhealthy choice, brought back memories of when I gave my then 95 year old Granddad a  7-11 slurpee which he then tasted for the first time – and watching his eyes widen in delight.
 
 This is not a film that anybody will be talking about in years to come. I imagine it will hit the streaming services fairly quickly, have another brief moment in the sun and then fade into obscurity. But it is  an easy, comfortable  ,watchable old, retired army guy beating up on drugcartel baddies cinema experience.
 
 Don’t expect twists and turns, don’t expect deep engaging dialogue, don’t expect to cheer, fear or cry – just expect to be reasonably entertained for a couple of hours. 

 I give this film 68 (Liam’s age) out of 100