The Commuter rides alongside an insurance salesman and former cop, Michael MacCauley, as he's approached by a stranger and forced to uncover the identity of a mysterious train passenger on his daily commute home. To make matters worse, the lives of his family and fellow passengers are on the line should he fail his task.
The Commuter stars Liam Neeson and is directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, marking their fourth collaboration together in addition to supposedly being Neeson's last action flick before he retires from the genre. Even though the trailers weren't particularly compelling, I knew I had to see The Commuter at some point when I considered the possibility it may truly be Liam Neeson's final action outing. At the very least, I thought it'd enable me to turn my brain off for a leisurely use of an hour and forty-four minutes, which it actually did to a degree...
Collet-Serra is well aware of exactly what kind of film he's making, so The Commuter never takes itself too seriously. If you've ever commuted on any type of metro service, you'll quickly realize how inauthentic Collet-Serra's portrayal of the commuting experience is in comparison to the real deal. Passengers constantly wander around while the train is in motion and the conductor paces the cars to punch holes in tickets that happen to reveal exactly which stop that passenger will be getting off at. The Commuter heavily relies on plenty of plot contrivances, as can be evidenced by the undistinguished screenplay from writers Byron Willinger, Phillip de Blasi, and Ryan Engle.
Things obviously happen for the purposes of being looped in later on, but Collet-Serra doesn't simply leave it at that... Almost every-time an event is referenced from earlier, the audience is shown that same thing again, because clearly Collet-Serra thinks the audience's IQ is equivalent to that of a mindless popcorn flick and they need the visual reminder. That's not to mention that many of these elements seem to come completely out of nowhere, so it's especially apparent they're being incorporated for a twist later down the line. On that note, I felt like I was always a stop or two ahead of The Commuter because the twists and turns were so predictable. Maybe it was just me, because I heard others audibly gasp a couple times, but I felt like the pieces fell into place a little too easily.
With that being said, there's some fun to be had with this lazy locomotive. Sure, the editing's occasionally incoherent, there were plenty of unnecessary cuts, and the camera moved around a bit too much for my liking... but the cheesy dialogue and periodic exhilarating action sequences made it bearable. Admittedly, most of the film is Liam Neeson wandering back and forth onboard a train... so that can get a bit boring, but the occasional action scene kept me interested. Is The Commuter a genre game-changer? Heck no! It's at least an above-average January release though.
In spite of his commonplace surroundings, Liam Neeson is quite good in the lead role. Neeson has starred in an overabundance of similar action-thrillers, so it's easy to buy into his character because Neeson's already nailed the necessary character traits. You care about the situation as an audience member because it's apparent Neeson does as well. Otherwise, the cast of The Commuter don't have much to offer. Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, and Sam Neill all show up in stock supporting capacity, but have little more to do than deliver a few lines as two-dimentional individuals.
At the end of the day, The Commuter is a leisurely (if not slightly boring) ride for a good portion of its time on the tracks before it literally and figuratively pulls all the stops and derails in the third act. Perhaps, you may want to wait till The Commuter makes a stop on the home media market to rent the film or catch it on cable.
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