'The Commuter' Review

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. 

Film Assessment: C+

'The Shallows' Review

Last year we saw Matt Damon's Mark Watney forced to survive alone on Mars in The Martian and earlier this year we saw Leonardo DiCaprio win an Oscar for his role in The Revenant after Dicaprio's Hugh Glass was forced to survive being left for dead once brutally injured in a bear attack, now watch in awe as Blake Lively's Nancy must survive on a rock in the midst of an ocean following a shark attack.

All of the aforementioned characters coincidently had the skills necessary to survive, Mark Watney was a botanist, Hugh Glass was a tracker, and Nancy is a Baylor medical school student, a nice parallel that came to mind while watching the film I thought would be worth drawing attention to in my review. The main differences between their situations obviously being the locale, Watney was alone on Mars, Glass was forced to brave the bitter cold unforgiving wilderness, while Nancy has the pleasure of a seagull's company on a Mexican beach.

The Shallows is the latest shark thriller attempting to follow in Jaws shadow, and up to this point, no film has come near the grandeur of Jaws, not even its sequels. With that being said, The Shallows is probably the closest any shark thriller has gotten to those heights post-Jaws because let's face it, Sharknado is ridiculous.

The Shallows however, does feel like an actual situation that could conceivably take place finding Nancy on vacation in Mexico hoping to find peace in the wake of her mother's death. Nancy journeys to the seemingly serene paradise on the good faith in her mother's description of the beaches and of course troubles arise when she decides to surf. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra manages to impressively play with audience expectations and build suspense by teasing the initial appearance of the shark. I also liked the clever ways Collet-Serra and the creative team incorporated the watch interface and phone display into the film with some pop-up displays to show the audience what Nancy is looking at as she Skypes or when she's using her stopwatch that was very refreshing visually and something I haven't seen too often.

His vision was portrayed exceptionally well with some awe-inspiring shots of the gorgeous clear ocean water, utilizing ultra wide shots, birds eye view, fish eye view, and even the traditional Jaws shark-eye view to make the film a masterpiece in regards to it's cinematography by Flavio Martinez Fabiano. On the subject of sharks, the shark in the film is created through CGI and looked and felt VERY real to me, so kudos to the visual effects artists as they crafted a marvelous shark.

In traditional Jaws fashion, the score composed by Marco Beltrami contains some bass vamps with dissonant chords to tease the arrival of the shark and convey a proper sense of danger and it did it's job well as I felt the uneasiness and tensity of Nancy's situation. Anthony Jaswinski crafts the screenplay and expertly throws monkey wrenches into all of Nancy's plans as complications arose and I really admire the unique ways he wrote Nancy out of said danger having her use intellect, skill, and adrenaline to fight on. On that subject, Blake Lively is incredible in this film selling the authenticity of her peril while crafting a compelling heroine in her own right delivering some truly awesome cheesy dialogue.

Thankfully, Blake Lively proves to be much more than sweet eye candy here with a truly terrific display of her talent. She spends a vast majority of the film's runtime either alone or in the company of a seagull so I can't quite speak for the supporting actors since their roles are minimal. The best aspect of The Shallows is that it keeps the story small in scope and never ventures outside of the beaches domain but tells a thrilling self contained story about a shark attack that had me hooked.

In this summer of disappointing blockbusters, The Shallows is a very refreshing original shark thriller that may rely on clichés but goes through the motions so well that it feels different from all the rest and gets along swimmingly thanks to Blake Lively's performance and the exceptional work behind the camera. Whatever ocean themed theatrical release you choose to see, you'll have a finn-tastic time watching either Finding Dory or The Shallows this Shark Week.

Film Assessment: B+