Look out Ed Harris, Daddy's home.

OK, we get it, Liam Neeson looks after his family – with a gun. Here, he dials up Ed Harris and pretty much cuts to the chase: “I’m coming after you,” he says. Ed Harris may strike us as a reasonably well-informed man, but he’s obviously missed out on Taken, Taken 2 and Taken 3. This is really Taken 4, but more predictable. Neeson plays Jimmy Conlon, a former hitman who, although estranged from his son (Joel Kinnaman), steps into the breach when the young man is threatened. It’s a familiar sight – a washed-up, alcoholic and bloodied Liam hobbling around an American city with a gun in his hand. So his fans won’t be disappointed.

The Spanish filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra has previously put Liam through his paces in Unknown (2011) and Non-Stop (2014) and knows the drill off my heart. He gives New York a familiar, gritty and nocturnal look and handles the shoot-outs adeptly, although the number of characters, back-stories and fast cutting does add a degree of confusion. Essentially, it’s a “sins of our fathers” scenario and although Liam and Ed play contemporaries, Liam looks like the battered prodigal son of the latter. These men are efficient killers yet every bit more honourable than the corrupt cops whizzing round the Big Apple providing shooting practice for Liam and an even nastier hitman played by Common (née Lonnie Rashid Lynn). There’s a particularly effective – and gripping – shoot-out in an Irish bar set to the sound of The Pogues (‘Fairytale of New York’), a touch probably suggested by the big Irishman himself. The only real surprise, though, is seeing a dentally-impaired Nick Nolte pop up in an uncredited cameo.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Liam Neeson, Joel Kinnaman, Vincent D'Onofrio, Bruce McGill, Genesis Rodriguez, Common, Ed Harris, Boyd Holbrook, Lois Smith, Beau Knapp, Patricia Kalember, Holt McCallany, Nick Nolte.

Dir Jaume Collet-Serra, Pro Roy Lee, Michael Tadross and Brooklyn Weaver, Screenplay Brad Ingelsby, Ph Martin Ruhe, Pro Des Sharon Seymour, Ed Dirk Westervelt, Music Junkie XL, Costumes Catherine Marie Thomas.

Vertigo Entertainment/RatPac-Dune Entertainment/Energy Entertainment-Warner Brothers.
114 mins. USA. 2015. Rel: 13 March 2015. Cert. 15.

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