Remember when we thought Liam Neeson’s turn towards action was just another phase of his career? Well, he’s basically been playing the kick-butt grandpa longer than anything else he’s ever done, and it’s getting tough to distinguish his films from one another. So what makes his latest, Retribution, any different from the rest? Well, at least this one is a remake of a Goya Award-winning Spanish film, and has a premise that calls back to Keanu Reeves in Speed.
In Retribution, Neeson plays an American businessman in Berlin who receives a phone call from a mysterious stranger, warning him that a bomb under his car will detonate, with his kids inside, if he doesn’t race around the city completing required tasks.
So yeah, it COULD turn out to be like Speed, but chances are it’ll end up more like Getaway if anyone remembers that dreadful movie.
Here’s the synopsis: Matt Turner (Liam Neeson) is a successful Berlin-based American businessman juggling a booming financial career with family responsibility. Driving his kids to school one morning, Matt receives a phone call from a mysterious voice: there’s a bomb under his seat that will detonate unless he completes a specific series of tasks and fast. Trapped in their car in a high-speed chase across the city, Matt must follow the stranger’s increasingly dangerous instructions in a race against time to protect his family and solve the mystery that plays out over the course of one day. This immersive ticking clock thriller from the producers of NON-STOP and THE COMMUTER straps audiences in for a high-octane ride of redemption and revenge.
The film also stars Jack Champion, Lilly Aspell, Matthew Modine, Embeth Davidtz, Arian Moayed, and Noma Dumezwen. Behind the camera is Spanish filmmaker Nimrod Antal, who made the move to Hollywood with films such as Vacancy and Predators, but never really took off after that. This is his first major studio effort since 2013’s Metallica: Through the Never which I bet you forgot existed.
Retribution hits theaters on August 25th.