In wide release, the new action movie by Nimród Antal 'Retribution' with the tireless Liam Neeson, who, it seems, is not going to stop the process of replicating the image of the savior of everyone, everywhere, and at once.

Wealthy broker Matt (Liam Neeson) greets a sunny morning in Berlin by punching a boxing bag. On TV in the background, alarming news reports another car explosion that killed a person. But Matt is little interested in city news: he is more concerned about an important work call he has to make today. And if this call goes badly, his family will have to tighten their belts, as business at the company where Matt works has been going poorly lately.

And on top of that, his wife asks him to drop the kids (and Lily Aspell) off at school on the way. Angry and distracted, Matt struggles to get his offspring into the expensive, premium Mercedes and heads to the destination. However, he doesn't get far. A phone rings in the car, and a sinister voice warns Matt about a bomb planted in the vehicle.

Evgeny Belousov

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He cannot leave the car, he cannot hang up the phone, stops only on demand, instructions must be followed strictly — otherwise an explosion is inevitable. Along the way, Matt must learn a 'lesson of self-discovery' delivered by the unknown caller, and also quickly figure out who he has angered so much and save his children and himself from death.

Over the past decade, films with Liam Neeson have become similar to each other, merging into one endlessly long movie that is played on screen, broken into parts for convenience. In it, the brutal protagonist, on the verge of despair, always stares tensely into the face of danger, fighting for the little that remains in his life after a series of personal tragedies or everyday troubles.

Genre boundaries strictly confine Neeson and the directors he works with, preventing them from moving into other territory. Therefore, in each new (old) film featuring the good actor, the question is only about the presumed circumstances. In this sense, 'Retribution' stands somewhere near 'Speed', 'Locke' (here Neeson, like Tom Hardy, also constantly negotiates while driving) or 'Phone Booth'.

With poor craftsmanship, all this turns into a strained and uninteresting spectacle, but with good craftsmanship, it becomes at least a solid 'B' category film, watching which does not cause a feeling of awkwardness. But 'Retribution' rather belongs to the second category (with some allowances, of course).

These allowances concern the film's structure — it is very fragile, so the film's director Nimród Antal ('Predators') tries not to take long pauses, managing to provide necessary explanations while the engine of the dangerous car has not completely stalled along with the plot. Around him, things periodically spark, luxury cars blow up, archaic Europe routinely serves as a backdrop in the rearview mirror, the camera confidently revolves around Neeson's face, and he himself performs without the usual reputation of a former special agent, but genuinely gets scared of the stranger's terrifying voice so that his hands on the steering wheel occasionally tremble.

But as soon as he picks up a gun (only once in the entire film), the feigned mask of a typical civilian's timidity instantly disappears, and instead, for a second, the old Neeson looks from the screen, copying Clint Eastwood's stern squint. After all, if you have been saving someone, shooting, and constantly fighting for decades, nothing can erase that.

'Retribution', of course, is not a genre benchmark and will most likely be quickly forgotten after the release of the next film featuring the sturdy 70-year-old Irishman. But when else will you be able to see a compact, brisk, and straightforward action movie on the big screen, where elite top managers lie profusely even to themselves, choke each other for a fatter prize, and the main character, among other things, saves his marriage from destruction without taking his foot off the gas pedal?