The Stream: The characters are weak, and the storyline is dumb.

The Big Screen: Berlin looks great.

The Final Bill: Neeson needs to reconsider his movie choices after another flop like this.

– Trip Fontaine
Director: Nimród Antal
Writers: Chris Salmanpour based on the film “El Desconocido” written by Alberto Marini
Stars: Liam Neeson, Noma Dumezweni, Embeth Davidtz, Matthew Modine, Arian Moayed
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
Rating: R for some language and violence
Runtime: 1 hour 31 minutes
Production Companies: StudioCanal, The Picture Company, Ombra Films, TF1 Films Production, Studio Babelsberg
Platform: In theaters August 25, 2023

Hey, Streamers! Did you know there was a new Liam Neeson movie out? It seems like there is a new Neeson movie out every year, but I mean currently. There really hasn’t been any promotion of this movie as if it was supposed to be straight to streaming, but it was actually in the theaters. It’s called Retribution, and I saw it, so you don’t have to.

Retribution is a suspense, thriller based on a Spanish film from 2015. In this version, Neeson plays a shady financier, Matt Turner, living in Berlin with his wife and children. Matt is not a good husband or father as he’s so focused on work that he is absent from his family. On one fateful day, Matt is fulfilling his fatherly duties, for once, by driving his teenage son and young daughter to school. Unfortunately, Matt’s car is rigged with explosives triggered by pressure on the driver’s seat as he is informed by a mysterious voice on a cell phone. Matt has to figure out, who has rigged his car, and get his family safely out of the car without it exploding. Car chases and cell phone-yelling hijinks ensue.

There really is no reason to waste too much time on Retribution. It feels like derivative schlock. Neeson has been making the same or similar movies for the better part of a decade. Typically, he’s some ex-cop, ex-military, hitman with special skills trying to save his family or whatever. Here, he doesn’t have those skills but it’s still the same. The children are annoying. The story is boring and dumb. None of it makes any sense when you really get down to it. There are some good explosions, but it all amounts to nothing. The best part of the movie is the tour of Berlin.

Ultimately, Retribution is more of the same from Liam Neeson. The story is boring and dumb. The characters are not engaging, so you can’t care too much about what happens to them. The children are annoying. There’s action, but you can get action in better movies from this year (ex. John Wick 4, Mission Impossible 7, etc.). Only watch this movie on streaming if you have nothing else to do with just one popped kernel.