Retribution (2023)

Director: Nimród Antal

Starring: Liam Neeson, Noma Dumezweni, Matthew Modine, Embeth Davidtz

A bank executive receives a bomb threat while driving his children to school that his car will explode if they stop and get out.

Liam Neeson has long since become his own victim of being typecast. Ever since ‘Taken’ back in 2008 he mostly portrays a dad in peril, or someone out for revenge.

Liam Neeson stars as Matt Turner. Matt lives in luxury with his wife and kids, but the family is falling apart. His wife secretly wants to divorce him, and his kids are spoiled brats with little respect for him….well, his daughter a bit maybe.

Driving his kids Zach and Emily to school one morning, Matt receives a call from a mysterious caller warning him there is a bomb under his seat, and unless he does exactly as instructed, the bomb will detonate. Also, if any of them tries to get out their seat, it will trigger the bomb. Feeling all too much like ‘Speed’, ‘Retribution’ fell short on every level.

It became clear Matt was in financial difficulty and that he and his company was involved in fraud amounting to millions of dollars. And so Matt was being set-up by the mysterious caller so Matt could transfer the funds to a designated account. But along the way there were quite number of plot flaws. The twist reveal also offered more questions than answers, and didn’t make sense considering what the characters went through. I’m not doing spoilers here, but this anonymous antagonist was in a position to accomplish his task without Matt, so why go through all the trouble and make-believe? It simply wasn’t believable.

I also didn’t find the performances believable enough. Sure, Liam Neeson is a veteran by now (at portraying similar characters) but he actually looked tired in this movie having to portray yet another dad in peril, as if he, too, believed it was deja vu, deja vu… In all fairness, Liam Neeson is 71 years old already, so I have to commend him for still taking on physical roles in action thrillers.

Despite the flaws, ‘Retribution’ was nevertheless still an exciting enough movie to keep me interested. It did feel more like a TV film than a mainstream movie, but it still provided a few thrills.

At the box office, ‘Retribution’ earned less than $16 million on a $20 million budget.

Would I watch it again? No.