When I first heard that Liam Neeson would be starring in a film called A Walk Among The Tombstones, I got really excited, because I imagined Liam Neeson going to a graveyard and digging up all the bad people he killed to kill them again. “One death is too good for these scum,” I imagined him growling. And perhaps a shot of Neeson bashing a skull screaming “GIMME BACK MY DAUGHTER!”
It sounds like your standard Neeson plot alright. “Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife.”
By kidnapping and murdering people, I assumed. But now that these clips have hit the web, I’m a little surprised. Sure, you’ve got Neeson talking tough to the Downton Abbey guy as their New Yawk dialect coach silently claps his palms together just off stage, but the clips are all at least 60 seconds long and not a single one includes a murder, a torture, a shooting, or even a slight bashing. Just a lot of talk. A Walk Among The Tombstones comes from Scott Frank, who adapted Minority Report and Out Of Sight, but still, multiple, 60-second stretches without anyone getting stabbed or beaten up? Who’s going to watch that, Latin professors? Come on, Neesons, make with the stabby stab.