Review: A Walk Among The Tombstones

When you see a trailer for a film, starring Liam Neeson, where he plays a guy who has to find people and subsequently kill them then you would imagine it would be a Taken rip off. But that couldn’t be farther from what the film is and that is a surprisingly entertaining and engaging film.

Directed by Scott Frank and based by the novel of the same name, written by Lawrence Block, A Walk Among the Tombstones is an action thriller film based in New York and sees a retired police officer named Matthew Scudder (Neeson) try to unravel the erroneous crimes of a pair of serial killers who seem to be targeting the loved ones of high profile criminals. After a drug trafficker, played by Dan Stevens, describes the gruesome manner in which his wife was killed to Scudder he makes it his goal to find the men who committed the crimes in an effort to save their captors from a grizzly end.

The plot of the movie seems straight forward, and almost cut-and-dry but anyone curious enough to see this film will be pleasantly surprised by almost everything that happens in the movie. Liam Neeson brings his gravel voiced A-game and goes through the plot with a sense of severity that is hard to pull off in most dramatic movies. Other actors play their hearts out and special mention needs to go to Brian Astro Bradley for playing the right type of child character that is just the right amount of charming and in over his head self-awareness to the more gruesome parts of the films setting.

Speaking of gruesome this film is not for the squeamish and while it doesn’t show too much, the implications alone will leave some people more than a little uncomfortable. To the credit of the villains, their actors and the direction of their pivotal scenes these are villains you love to hate. Not loveable in the way say Loki from Avengers might be but in that you can’t take your eyes off them as they do the horrible things with a smile on their face.    

Another thing to note about this film is that among its hardcore violence, disturbing bad guys and washed out palette it also sports a good deal of comedy. Character dialogue, situations, and certain editing choices lead to some mild natural laughs and even some head scratching gut busters. It mostly fits as its human nature to relieve tragedy with comedy but, especially with the antagonists, it gets to an inappropriate level of jokes that almost make th film seem like a satire of its genre.

The movie as a whole is one that will definitely be talked about by friends who are going just for a Liam Neeson fix will soon find an outstanding movie that should be given a second watch just to catch all the crazy.

-Michael Emerson