MICHAEL LOMAX: ‘Run All Night’ has just enough gas

Actor Liam Neeson has, for the better part of the last decade, made his bread and butter on shoot-‘em-up action thrillers. I suppose this started with “Taken” in 2008. Following a retired CIA operative who recovers his daughter from European sex traffickers, the film generated more than $200 million at the box office and spawned two commercially successful sequels.

“Taken” was also responsible for transforming Neeson into a bona-fide action star. In just the last year alone, he’s appeared in the aptly named titles “Non-Stop,” “A Walk Among the Tombstones” and “Taken 3,” which makes “Run All Night” the final piece in a recent string of dead bodies and shell casings. But while arguably the best of the bunch, “Run” is poised to make much less money than any of its immediate predecessors.

The film itself is slick but standard action fare.

Neeson plays retired mob enforcer Jimmy “Gravedigger” Conlon, a man haunted by the faces of those he killed at the behest of former boss and best friend Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). These demons have effectively distanced Jimmy from his son Michael (Joel Kinnamon). But when Jimmy is forced to kill Shawn’s own misguided son, old friends become enemies and estranged relatives become allies. Jimmy and Michael must evade both the police and Shawn’s goons if they hope to last the night.

Maybe movie audiences are starting to tire of Neeson’s shtick. While not a great film by any stretch, “Taken” was well choreographed and entertaining. And since 2008, Neeson hasn’t had a single dud. It was bound to catch up to him.

When you take a closer look at Neeson’s action hits, they all start sounding the same: an aging badass finds himself involved in a sticky situation for which only his badass powers of badassery will save the day. So why pay money to see a movie you’ve already seen a dozen times already? From the same actor, no less!

It’s basically the Tom Cruise Effect: a successful action star does a movie or two a year in which he plays roughly the same kind of character whose adventures work out in roughly the same way. The telltale sign? When you’re describing the film to a friend and you can’t remember the main character’s name. It’s always “Tom Cruise did this” or “Tom Cruise did that.”

It’s gotten to the same point for Neeson. The only difference is that Tom Cruise movies make money. “Run All Night” has been out over a week now, and that first weekend wasn’t kind to a film with a $50 million production budget, with an extra $50 million likely tacked on for marketing.

To be fair, “Run” is a fine action film. The chemistry between Neeson and Harris, in particular, is both appetizing and symbolic — two veterans of the game reminiscing on their old haunts and shortcomings while looking ahead to the grim and inexplicable future. And given the film’s one-night premise, the action is predictably fast-paced and never boring.

Perhaps this box office hitch is a minor blip in an otherwise successful turn for Neeson, but there’s no denying that audiences are starting to get a little sated on his specific brand of shoot-‘em-up. That being said, it only takes another off-“Taken” smash hit to revitalize the stock. And if you’re playing Russian roulette against Neeson, you better be prepared to bite the bullet. Because you know he is.

Michael Lomax is a writer-filmmaker currently at work on a film script to be set and shot in Albany.