LIAM NEESON IN A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES

year: 2014 rating: ***

Beginning with the colorfully blood-drenched aesthetic reminiscent of PULP FICTION, and taking place during the early 90’s, Danny DeVito’s Jersey Films has now produced A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTSONES…

After a gun-blasting prelude, we skip to 1999 where the grainy look wares off... But things get even more retro than the Y2K era: This is a throwback Neo-Film Noir about Neeson’s Matt Scudder, an ex cop turned private eye who converses with so many shady characters, he needn’t narrate at all.

Eventually winding up at a cemetery where the title becomes literal, the murky atmosphere feels like a purgatory of sorts...

From the time Matt’s given the task to find who killed a drug dealer's wife, he exists beneath the law and, detached from rules and mundane reality, is brought down to earth by a young black sidekick who invades Neeson’s brooding maverick persona, often turning TOMBSTONES into GUMSHOE AND A HALF: The pace is intentionally slow; like reading a potboiler dime novel but without too many twists or complicated red herrings. And by the end we're left with a main character far more intriguing than his quest. Which might have been intentional.