In 2019, Liam Neeson teamed up with the Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland to make the action thriller “Cold Pursuit.” It did not go well.
Nevertheless, the two are back in harness for “Absolution,” a dreary gangster tale as depressing as Neeson’s repeat portrayals of aging tough guys-turned-reluctant avengers. This time, he’s a rumpled, rueful alcoholic and an enforcer for a Boston crime boss played by Ron Perlman. (Tony Gayton’s script is so lazy it declines to even name most of its characters.) The hook here is that Neeson’s leg-breaking character, let’s call him Punchy, is starting to forget important details like where he lives and the names of his criminal cohort. If he hurries, he’ll have just enough time to reconnect with his long-estranged daughter (Frankie Shaw), bed a feisty barfly (Yolonda Ross) and maybe rescue a sex-trafficking victim or two before succumbing to his disease. Or an associate’s bullet.
Wrapped in drab visuals and a doomy atmosphere, “Absolution” paints a world where lowlifes rule and neither doctors nor priests can be trusted. Yet there are moments when the beatdowns pause and a misty melancholy shines through: Punchy, hands shaking, writing reminders in a little notebook, or having hallucinatory chats in a fishing boat with his long-dead, abusive father. The movie seeps sentimentality; but Neeson’s scenes with Shaw, who created and starred in the scrappy Showtime series “SMILF” (2017-19), have a touching authenticity, and Ross’s character is so spiky and warm she offers relief from Punchy’s soggy self-centeredness.
Watching “Absolution,” I was reminded that Neeson is now 72 and his possible weariness with this kind of role might be lending credence to his character’s frailties. The problem with movies about declining antiheroes is that their arcs can only bend in one direction.
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