Michael MacCauley (Liam Neeson) is having a nasty day. After ten years of devoted service as an insurance coverage salesman, he’s being let go, and, simply to rub it in, his severance package deal consists of a medical-benefits extension and precisely zero months of wage. He downs a couple of beers together with his cop buddy, Alex Murphy (Patrick Wilson), on the way in which to the prepare station. You see, MacCauley was once a cop, too. On the prepare experience dwelling, a horny, professional-type lady (Vera Farmiga) strikes up a dialog with MacCauley and issues begin to get bizarre. What if, she asks him, you simply needed to do one little factor that wouldn’t have an effect on you in any respect, however would gravely have an effect on another person on the prepare—and you’ll be paid 100,000 for it? Are you the type of one who would look away should you’re circuitously concerned within the ugly a part of issues?

The Commuter retains the viewers guessing for some time as as to whether MacCauley is the look-away type of particular person or not. It’s one of many extra attention-grabbing dynamics within the film, and one of many extra official. That legitimacy is vital as a result of The Commuter suffers from a deadly flaw that ruptures its basis: Its central premise is totally and profoundly implausible. It requires a superhuman suspension of disbelief to assume that the dangerous guys would go to the lengths they do to contain MacCauley within the assassination of a sure particular person. The query of “why don’t they just do this themselves?” won’t cease operating by means of a viewer’s thoughts, and it provides the entire enterprise an air of silliness.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows) has labored with Liam Neeson earlier than on the movies Unknown, Non-Stop, and Run All Night, so one would anticipate that they’d be capable of ship one thing higher than mediocre for his or her fourth collaboration. Alas, mediocrity abounds in The Commuter. The battle scenes are lazy and poorly shot. The moving-train antics are cliched and anticlimactic. And frankly, as a lot affection as one might need for Liam Neeson, he’s beginning to present a bit an excessive amount of put on and tear to actually do that action-movie factor proper. If which means we see him in additional roles just like the one he performed so effectively in Scorsese’s masterful Silence, then we’re all the higher for it.

There are some moments of whodunit suspense in The Commuter, and one or two edge-of-your-seat motion sequences. It’s additionally gratifying to see Vera Farmiga present her sociopathic aspect. And a few the twists and activates the experience to reply the query that kicked off the entire plot are ingenious. But, though it’s not with out its charms, The Commuter isn’t any Taken. And how excessive of a bar is that, actually?