The Commuter (2018)

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Starring: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson

An Insurance Salesman/Ex-Cop is caught up in a criminal conspiracy during his daily commute home.

In the beginning, the film has a very effective way of showing the passing of time through clever photography and editing. Unfortunately this was about as much as I enjoyed about the film. NOTHING about the plot is believable. In fact, I’d go so far as calling it preposterous. There’s just so much wrong here, if I were to highlight these scenes, I’d end up talking about the entire film.

If Vera Farmiga’s character, Joanna, and her organisation is so technologically advanced that they can see and hear Michael (Liam Neeson) every step of the way – and his family! – why can’t they find Prin themselves? Why do they need Michael? And why set up someone if they can easily erase their trace? When they allowed Michael to listen to his family, his family just happened to talk about him at that very second. Yeah, right, that’s so believable…

This film blatantly borrows from ‘Non-stop’, ‘Unstoppable’, ‘Knowing’, etc. that it should be considered a crime. Even the train crash scene was equally overdone as the crash scene from ‘Super 8′.  When the police arrives at the train crash scene, there first reaction is to draw their guns and ask Michael to step outside. Are you friggin kiddin’ me!! The crash site looks like a war zone and they’re not even interested in the well-being of the passengers (or hostages, as preposterous as it is). No ambulances rush to the scene?? No fire engines??? On the news they say “no word of casualties”… That’s because no-one bothered to check yet!!

This was cliche upon cliche and elevated to the point of stupidity during the final act. Similar to ‘Non-Stop’, this is equally forgettable. (What was the point of ‘Non-Stop’ again…??)