Dudes, when are you going to learn? You don’t threaten Liam Neeson’s family. Give him a light saber, make him renounce his religion, turn him into a tree, whatever, you may just live. Unless you’ve got a death wish, lay off his family. What do you suppose the over-under is on bad guys who found this out the hard way? 100? 200? 500? Hard to say. Fellas, learn.
The latest indulgence in the astrological Liam convergence of the commonplace and the ridiculous is The Commuter, a movie which reminds us how much better life is when you encourage random strangers to “f*** off” instead of talking to you. The film begins with a nifty bit of montage editing introducing us to the daily routine of Michael MacCauley (Neeson). There’s sort of a Groundhog Day-type splicing overview of every morning – he gets up, eats breakfast, greets the college-bound child, moons the neighbor, and gets driven to the station by his wife, etc. He knows the fellow commuters by face and a few by name.
At work, he’s fired. I’m sure there’s a backstory there somewhere, but mostly it gets him down early to O’Furniture’s for some drinks with Patrick Wilson. It was really nice for Patrick to take some time out of his busy day for this pub crawl. But Michael has a train to catch so he can be on time to tell his wife he got canned. And on the train, Michael gets an Indecent Proposal from random stranger Joanna (Vera Farmiga). Unfortunately, this proposal is strictly business and “hypothetical:” all you have to do is ID someone on this train carrying something stolen and getting off at Cold Springs. Joanna says she doesn’t know who, but they will “know” if the person is correct once the deed is done. Make the correct ID and you get $100,000. Second prize is you’re fired. Oops, too late.
Gotta say; this format doesn’t work in ride share vehicles used for the evening commute. “Is it the driver?” I was with The Commuter up to this station in the narrative. As the train pulled away, however, this development kind of made me cringe. Being an introvert, I would rather diffuse a bomb than talk up random strangers, much less figure out from the clues given by the strange lady which anonymous soul will face something unspecified for carrying an unknown thing in a random train car.
The Commuter has what I like to call a “January Plot,” which is to say a plot that will only suffice in January, when our action movie standards are often reduced to the world of Resident Evil. January Plots can indeed sound cool, but fold under the slightest amount of scrutiny. For instance: how could a person or group powerful enough to know an individual’s codename, satchel contents, time of travel, method of travel, and destination not have any idea what that person looks like? That honestly sounds like you want to have this “conspiracy” plot 
uncovered; how is Michael going to identify a single passenger by what they are carrying without drawing attention to himself? And once the police get involved, the Joanna plan fails spectacularly. This is simply the most obvious plot issue; there are no end of them.
It is best not to think too much about The Commuter, especially the part where it assumes, in a fifteen-minute succession: Silver Streak, Speed, and Spartacus. If Liam Neeson getting hit in the head a dozen times or so is your idea of a wild night, hey, go for it. There is a nice –and completely out-of-place– moment where Michael gives the finger to an obnoxious Goldman Sachs rep “on behalf of the American middle class.” In retrospect, this sole moment of levity is indicative of the misread errors in the film itself; I could have gone for that guy getting punched in the face, and why not, Liam? You punched everybody else.
I see your skill set in the train
I see your skill set in a plane
I see your skill set on the Fox
I see your skill set and hard knocks
I see your skill set in the house
I see your skill set while you grouse
I see your skill set makes them pay
I see your skill set every day
I’ve no need for this kidnap scam
I do not need Neeson, Liam
Rated PG-13, 104 Minutes
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Writer: Byron Willinger, Philip de Blasi, Ryan Engle
Genre: The crazy, violent world of Liam Neeson
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Liam fanatics, what do you call them, “(Li) AmNeesions?” Makes sense to me; I’d enjoy his work better if I could forget his plot from time-to-time
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Cryptic conspirators
Parody Inspired by Green Eggs and Ham
