By bucking a genre trope, In the Land of Saints and Sinners turns its familiar premise into a solid action thriller.
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About once a year I swear I see a comment where Liam Neeson does an interview where he says he's done making action movies or action thrillers. Which is fair. Despite never losing his imposing stature, Neeson is 72 years old and stunt-fueled movies or the perceived aura of bad-ass only goes so far. But I like to picture when this script was brought up Neeson just said "...well I meant American ones. Of course I'll do Irish ones!" Which brings us to In The Land of Saints and Sinners, an interesting take on the assassin trying to give up the life movie.
The Setup
Neeson stars as Finbar Murphy, an assassin for the Irish mob that's having second thoughts about his line of work. When his latest assassination upends him, Finbar decides to follow through on his word and tries to live a quiet life in his small town. But the arrival of some aggressive IRA members on the lam may force Finbar to not only bring back his violent ways, but also reveal himself to his town...
In The Land of Saints and Sinners works a lot better for me than it might for most for one big reason. It's not a "one last job" movie. Or rather it rejects the "one last job" setup. For those familiar, the "one last job" is a setup for all kinds of crime movies whether a thief or assassin is brought in with the understanding that they're done after all of this. They're giving up the life, which means this particular job is going to come with giant complications via romance, new players, or some kind of connection to the past or future of our lead character.
And...I find them boring at times. Unless the individual is demonstrated to be desperate, almost every hired assassin in movie world could quit tomorrow. So how refreshing is it to see that Neeson's Finbar does! Which means now he's got to figure out how to person without going out of town to find and kill people all over Ireland.
And these awkward bits where Neeson is trying to figure out how to garden and how to person, or even just the dynamics of his town that he barely hangs around it are the unique/fun stuff that upend the genre tropes. There's so many great bits where Finbar is trying to do something that someone would do all the time, but he's a shade or two off (though his heart is in the right place).
It also leaves the door open for Finbar to find a just cause...
Now one of the details I like here is how the IRA members are weaved pretty naturally into the plot. Basically this little faction of IRA members are on the run after a bombing that killed civilians and one of them have an in-law in Finbar's town.
And as you'd expect one of them is a bad dude who intimidates a little girl that Finbar is friendly with. So now that he has free time he can look after her, and defend her. But getting into conflict with a group that may not target, but certainly ends up killing civilizations (as the opening scene indicates) means that any escalation could bring more hurt and harm to Finbar's town.
And as you'd expect one of them is a bad dude who intimidates a little girl that Finbar is friendly with. So now that he has free time he can look after her, and defend her. But getting into conflict with a group that may not target, but certainly ends up killing civilizations (as the opening scene indicates) means that any escalation could bring more hurt and harm to Finbar's town.
I like this tension because it means that you justifiably celebrate when Neeson attacks on of these guys, while fully realizing this created a problem. It's a tension the movie maintains until it hits the breaking point and explodes.
Another thing I like about this movie is how Robert Lorenz visually juxtaposes so much of Ireland's natural beauty and greenery with tragedy and violence. For instance, Finbar's go to execution spot is the tail end of a nice forest where he appears to plant a tree every time he kills someone. It's not a dirty alley. It's a lovely place. But it's built on pain and death and this seemingly endless cycle of violence (i.e. the first guy he kills is former IRA himself).
The Verdict: Solid Stuff
By bucking a genre trope, In the Land of Saints and Sinners turns its familiar premise into a solid action thriller. 7/10
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