Grade: B-/C+
Action thriller
Rated PG-13
From the first scene where an aging Arizona rancher (Liam Neeson) stumbles onto a cartel “situation” and ends up with a bag full of money, to a scene that’s the equivalent of the Coen Brothers’ “coin toss scene,” The Marksman feels like a cheap knockoff of No Country for Old Men. And with a little Hunt for the Wilderpeople added for good measure.
What cheapens it isn’t Neeson’s performance, but rather a formulaic approach to ticking off the boxes rather than concentrating on creating characters and relationships with any individuality or depth.
For one thing, first-time director Robert Lorenz spends too much time in the early going just establishing a few facts that could have been hinted at more subtly:
—Jim Hanson was a Vietnam War veteran who earned a medal for marksmanship
—Jim Hanson is lost and lonely because his wife died of cancer
—Jim Hanson is going to lose his ranch unless he can come up with a lot of money to pay for back mortgage payments
The film is also marred by characters that push past stereotypes into caricature country.
Javier Bardem has nothing to fear from the cartel bad ass that Lorenz gives us here. Mauricio—called “Heffe” and played by Juan Pablo Raba—is too cartoonish to be chilling. He’s just a bad guy who sneers a lot and stares a lot in lingering close-ups. Oh we believe him when he says he’s going to kill the old rancher who drove away with the son of a Mexican woman he already killed at the border. And we believe he’s determined to recover the drug money that the boy’s (now deceased) uncle had taken from him and given to his (now deceased) mother. But Bardem as Anton Chigurh was a one-and-done, just as Heath Ledger’s lizard-tongued Joker was a one-time affair. Try to duplicate it and you’re doomed to fall short.
The film’s most chilling scene is actually understated. After a brief shoot-out at an isolated stretch of border fence, Jim takes off with the boy Miguel (Jacob Perez), whom he was asked to take to relatives in Chicago in exchange for the contents of the bag. Later in the film, Jim (and the audience) think they might be in the clear when the bad guys try to follow them into the U.S. and pull up at a customs station. Heffe’s driver rolls his arm so the border agent can see his tattoo. When the officer asks to see a passport and is handed a stolen passport of a Anglo-American woman whose likeness is about as far removed from a Mexican male as it gets, we expect such arrogance to be rewarded with detainment or containment . . . especially when the officer calls for the back of the vehicle to be searched. Yet after a token search of the cargo area and an “All clear,” the officer waves them into the country. Welcome to the U.S.
Yikes. Of course the cartel drug trade is so lucrative and large that they would have U.S. law officers on their payroll. But you don’t think about it until you see a scene like this.
Though The Marksman is billed as an action thriller, it’s almost a head-snapper when a vehicle explodes and dramatically flips, because you find yourself thinking that aside from frequent shooting there isn’t as much action as you’d expect. There also isn’t as much growth or depth to the relationship between the crusty old man and the boy as we saw in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople, or even the relationship between Clint Eastwood’s grumpy old white guy and the Hmong teenager he befriended in Gran Torino. It’s almost as if the screenwriters didn’t know what to do with the old man and boy once they got them in the car together. Same with a subplot involving Jim’s stepdaughter Sarah (Katheryn Winnick), a border agent that really doesn’t seem to do much.
But what Lorenz and co-writers Chris Charles and Danny Kravitz get right is the third act. It’s not just Jim who finds redemption in the end . . . it’s the filmmakers as well. And no, you’ll get no spoilers from me. Is the ending enough to make up for that plodding and excessively (and redundantly) informational first act or the sense of missed opportunities that dominate the second? Probably not. Fans of Neeson will embrace this as another go-it-alone high-stakes maverick venture along the lines of the Taken trilogy or Cold Pursuit, but if they’re honest with themselves The Marksman doesn’t quite hit the mark.
Entire family: No
Run time: 108 min. (Color)
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Studio/Distributor: Universal
Bonus features: C-
Includes: Blu-ray, Digital Code
Trailer
Amazon link
Rated PG-13 for violence, some bloody images, and brief strong language
Language: 5/10—One f-bomb and a dozen or so lesser swearwords
Sex: 0/10—No sex, no nudity
Violence: 7/10—Shooting, shooting, and more shooting; people get shot, several at close range, and blood is shown often; some violence happens off-screen
Adult situations: 6/10—Jim drinks often and carries a flask, but it’s not clear whether he’s passing out from the alcohol or tiring because of his age
Takeaway: Qui-Gon Jinn once said, “Feel, don’t think. Trust your instincts,” and you can’t help but wonder how much better this film might have been had it veered more sharply away from Hollywood formulas
