Under Suspicion - 1991 film review

There's more than one film called Under Suspicion, and the 1991 movie was unknown to me before it cropped up on Talking Pictures TV. The cast looked promising, so I decided to give it a go, even though a quick glance on the internet indicated that some reviewers really didn't like the movie. I'm glad I watched it, since although the script tests our suspension of disbelief to the limits, the overall style of the film is engaging.

The setting is Brighton at the end of the 1950s. Liam Neeson is Tony Aaron, an ex-cop who is struggling to earn a crust as a seedy private eye. His main source of income is divorce work. He persuades clients who want a divorce to go to a hotel room with his attractive wife (Maggie O'Neill) and then bursts into the room and photographs them in bed together. One day, things go terribly wrong. The client and his wife have been murdered.

The client turns out to have been a painter called Stasio. He'd left his wife (Alphonsia Emmanuel) for a model called Angeline (Laura San Giacomo) and his lawyer (the always reliable Stephen Moore, who sadly died a couple of years back) reveals that he'd changed his will on the day of his death, disinheriting his wife in favour of Angeline. But some evidence points to Tony as the guilty party. Can he establish his innocence? Even his closest pal (Kenneth Cranham, playing a less menacing character than usual) has his doubts.

The locations in Brighton are atmospherically portrayed and it was great to see the Portmeirion Hotel masquerading as Stasio's posh mansion. There are some unlikely developments in the plot, but the pace and acting (a prosecution barrister is played by Alex Norton, better known as Burke in Taggart) are both good. It's a sort of British version of a Chandleresque mystery, and despite its limitations, it's decent entertainment.  

The Commuter and The Negotiator (aka Beirut) - two 2018 films

When I travelled to Florida recently, the long trip gave me time to read a number of books and to watch a number of movies. Today I'll talk about a couple of the films I watched, two thrillers that made for good aeroplane entertainment.

Liam Neeson is an actor I really like; his combination of crumpled charm and ordinary man turned tough guy heroics isn't easy to resist even if his performances follow a very similar pattern. In The Commuter, he plays a decent family man down on his luck, an ex-cop who is sacked from his job through no fault of his own. As always in films and television, the dismissal is conducted in an off-the-cuff manner that (after my years as an employment lawyer) I find risibly crude and implausible because it's an invitation to litigation that no boss in his right mind would risk. But since it's not a story about employment law, perhaps this is nothing to worry about unduly.

On the train back home, Neeson is approached by a pleasant, mysterious woman, who offers him $100,000 dollars to undertake an apparently simple task. Needless to say, there's a catch...before long, he's involved in a frantic race against time to find which of his fellow passengers is a mysterious character called Prynne, and to figure out why it matters. Yes, it's hokum, but it makes for enjoyable and exciting viewing.

The Negotiator, also known as Beirut, features another class act, Jon Hamm, in the lead role. He plays Mason Skiles, a top diplomat in the Lebanon whose life is wrecked in 1972, when his wife is killed. He returns to the US, and becomes a workplace negotiator before being summoned back to Beirut when his old friend Cal is kidnapped by terrorists.

The screenplay is written by Tony Gilroy, responsible for the Bourne movies, and it's quite accomplished, but it seemed to me that Gilroy was trying to achieve something more than an action thriller, and I'm not quite sure he managed it. Hamm's relationship with Rosamund Pike, one of the kidnap negotiation team, for instance, is rather inadequately developed, while the eternally elaborate politics of the Middle East are tackled in a serious way, but without casting any real light. John Le Carre would, I think, have made more of the material. So what we are left with is an action movie, and it's a perfectly good one, hardly memorable, but a very good way to spend time on a long flight. 

Chloe -film review

Chloe is a psychological thriller movie, originally released in 2009. It's a remake by Atom Egoyan of a French film called Nathalie, from 2003, which I haven't seen. Chloe benefits from a classy cast, led by Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson. I always enjoy watching Neeson, even though I'm not quite sure whether that's because of his acting skills or simply his charisma. Here, as so often, he plays David, a rumpled but likeable guy, an academic and a specialist in opera. The trouble is, his wife Catherine starts to suspect that he's rather too likeable as far as his students are concerned.

Catherine, a rich doctor, throws an extravagant surprise birthday party for David at great expense. Much to her embarrassment, he doesn't show up, because he's missed his flight. But did he miss it to be with someone else? She thinks so, and before long the affluent and seemingly untroubled lifestyle of the couple (and the life of their musical but troubled son Michael) is in serious jeopardy.

Catherine comes across a highly attractive escort girl, Chloe, and decides to hire Chloe to test David, by seeing if he is susceptible to being seduced. It's not a wise plan. Before long Chloe is reporting back graphic details of what she and David get up to. And then Chloe encounters Michael when she turns up at Catherine's place of work...

After an enigmatic and unpredictable opening, Chloe develops into a relatively straightforward thriller. The film critic Roger Ebert is among those who have admired the ambiguity of Chloe's motivation (and it's no accident that the film is named for her) but although I enjoyed the film as a competent thriller, I don't think that it has any great claims to sophistication in terms of writing. But Amanda Seyfried's portrayal of the title character is certainly compelling..

Unknown: film review

Unknown is a 2011 film (there is another with the same title that I have yet to see, but which sounds good) starring Liam Neeson and January Jones. It opens with the pair of them arriving in a snowy Berlin. Dr Martin Harris, along with his wife, scheduled to attend a high profile academic conference on biotechnology. As they come to check in, one of their suitcases goes missing. Neeson hails a cab driven by a young woman and heads back for the airport.

However, the car crashes, and although the driver saves Neeson, he winds up in hospital and is out of it for four days. When he wakes up, he finds his wife has not asked after him. He goes back to the hotel, but his wife denies all knowledge of him - and is accompanied by another man, who says he is Dr Martin Harris. A quick internet search reveals the other man's face on the university website...

It's a wonderful premise, and the action seldom flags from that point. Neeson is a big man, but he also has a vulnerable quality that makes him a very appealing hero. But - is he a hero? What is going on? You do have to sympathise with someone who thinks he is married to January Jones and then finds she blanks him! Is she being put under pressure or blackmailed, or is there some other reason for her behaviour?

Of course, a story like this depends very heavily on the quality of the explanation for the puzzle. So often the answer is a let-down. But in my opinion, the story was well-structured, and the explanation worked for me. I was also reminded what a marvellous city Berlin is - I last went there when I was a student, and the Wall was still up. I was staying in a flat near the Wall and remember hearing shots fired one evening when we were having a meal. Must get back there, and see how it has changed. Unknown certainly encouraged me to return, though not, I hope, with the results encountered by Liam Neeson... There was one aspect which I felt implausible, but can't mention for fear of spoilers. Overall, though, a very gripping and well-made film, and I certainly have no hesitation in recommending it.

Taken

Even if its plot is straightforward, a thriller can thrill, as long as the story is told with drive and style, and the 2008 movie Taken is a good example of this. Taken stars Liam Neeson as retired CIA man Bryan Mills, whose wife has found a second husband who is richer and more suave, and with whom Mills’ adored 17 year old daughter Kim now lives. Mills reluctantly agrees to Kim going off on an extended holiday in Europe with a girlfriend, but when the pair are kidnapped hours after arriving in Paris, he springs into action, determined to rescue Kim.

I suppose everyone who watches this film will expect Mills to triumph in the end, and of course they are not disappointed. But the predictability doesn’t matter much, because Neeson plays the veteran hero with utter conviction, and after a careful opening, in which his motivation is established, the pace becomes relentless.

So we have vertiginous clambering around an apartment block, high-speed car chases, and shoot-outs aplenty, as well as the obligatory uncharacteristic lapse of concentration on the hero’s part which leaves him facing imminent execution. I thought it was very well done, and the film was short enough to allow me no time to ponder the improbability of it all.

If it’s an undemanding slice of entertainment that you’re after, I can recommend Taken, which I’d put alongside the Bourne films as an illustration of the way in which rather formulaic plot elements can be turned into a gripping and truly enjoyable action film. And Neeson, who made this movie not long before the utterly tragic death of his wife, Natasha Richardson, is absolutely excellent.