‘Absolution’ Review: A Muddled Drama Clouds Liam Neeson’s Best Performance in Years
Liam Neeson gives his all for the first time in a long time in Absolution, even if the material he has to work with tends to be on the muddled side.
There’s a longing sense of melancholy within Liam Neeson’s performance of an aging gangster afflicted by Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) in Absolution. Reuniting with director Hans Petter Moland after 2019’s Cold Pursuit, Neeson finally has the chance to modulate his brooding turn as an unnamed gangster known in the closing credits as “Thug,” who not only has to wrestle with his newly diagnosed condition but atone for the mistakes he made as a father, and now grandfather.
In that sense, this role feels like a departure from the Cannon Group-subtype action films that have unfortunately boxed in the actor since he starred in Pierre Morel’s Taken. I’m one of the few film enthusiasts who despises the movie and believes it led to an unfortunate path of typecasting for one of the greatest actors who ever graced the silver screen. For over a decade, it has put him in disposable action flicks where a stunt double does most of his work, while Neeson light slaps people who fall to the ground in agony. His later movies were symptomatic of what Charles Bronson suffered while working under Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus: B-plots with mind-numbing action to distract us from its thinly-developed characters and phoned-in lead performance from a once A-lister.
But in Absolution, Neeson finally has the chance to show (or, more aptly, remind us) why he’s such a great actor. Suffering from the effects of CTE, Thug begins to experience trance-like visions of the time he used to fish with his father as a little boy. A voiceover line of dialogue tells the audience that the two would go fishing every weekend, a bonding activity of sorts for the two and their only sacred moment. It’s only natural that, as his mind begins to blur and his memory becomes weaker, he reunites with his father on a moving boat, waiting to grab a massive fish.
In those moments, Neeson imbues Thug with a childlike wonder that is now lost by doing Charlie Cooper’s (Ron Perlman) dirty business for over thirty years. He is also not on speaking terms with his daughter, Daisy (Frankie Shaw), to which we realize that he has suppressed the most joyful parts of living. But when he receives a crushing medical diagnosis, the tough exterior he’s conveyed throughout his life as a boxer and gangster begins to fall apart. He now remembers what it felt like to live and begins to experience it by way of a newfound love (Yolonda Ross) and the beginning of a connection with his grandson (Terrence Pulliam).
These specific sequences give Absolution purpose, as Thug longs to forgive his sins and desires to start anew with Daisy supporting him. He knows he can’t fix the past and will never atone for his mistakes. However, he also realizes he hasn’t been happy for a long time, doing terrible things for terrible people. This life may have rewarded him financially or at least given him the respect he always wanted, but it hasn’t fulfilled him spiritually and psychologically. He finally wants to be happy and freed from the shackles of guilt that, unfortunately, made him distant from the people he should love the most.
Neeson represents this desire for absolution in a surprisingly meditative and quiet turn, similar to what Ian McShane did earlier this year in Gonzalo López-Gallego’s American Star. While that film had a methodical style that fit with the protagonist’s routine, which Absolution does not, Neeson asks the audience to carefully examine how Thug feels about doing something that is alienating him from the inside out.
In the film’s sole action sequence, where he takes down a group of assassins, the physical tiredness he feels from the CTE is exacerbated by the fact that he’s also exhausted from following the path he’s been on for thirty years. This is executed through careful shifts in his body language, whether on his face or in his physical demeanor (plus, there’s no lethargic light slapping coming from Neeson this time around). It’s his best turn in years, one that will hopefully free him from the action-driven path he’s been stuck in for far too long.
And yet, with such a calculated and riveting portrayal of an aging gangster longing for atonement, Petter Moland and screenwriter Tony Gayton sadly fill the script of Absolution with as many clichés as possible, effectively diluting some of the more effective drama that’s solely carried through Neeson. The symptoms of illness come and go at a convenient moment, which makes us see when they will be brought back a mile away, and some of the film’s more harrowing scenes contain dialogues that feel like the first draft of a first-ever screenplay written by an aspiring screenwriter.
You’ll have a scene of incredible emotional poignancy from Neeson, only for it to be followed by the most lackadaisical, baffling Uwe Boll-lite concoction imaginable, one that an Oscar-nominated actor like him should be above. It also throws in a human trafficking subplot that could’ve communicated with Thug’s longing for absolution, whether in the relationship he shares with his family or from his criminal life. Petter Moland emotionally involves Thug when he sees the ‘merchandise’ he’s been carrying in a truck and begins to reckon with what he’s been enabling for so long.
He feels great shame for what he’s done, which leads to the filmmaker emotionally latching the audience to one character, Araceli (Deanna Tarraza), who locked eyes with Thug as she got carried away to an undisclosed location, her body now sold for sex. What could’ve acted as another step towards absolution instead acts as a cruel, unforgiving punishment for the protagonist near its climax, even if he largely absolves himself during the concluding arc. However, one specific decision regarding the aforementioned character doesn’t feel deserved, regardless of Thug’s actions towards her.
This ultimately leaves Absolution on a sour note, forgetting entirely that this crime thriller is at its least interesting when it focuses on Thug’s criminal life. It’s at its most spiritually compelling when it examines the concept of absolution through Thug’s introspective longing for a better life once he receives a life-altering diagnosis. This gives Neeson a way to remind everyone of his compassionate, friendlier side to the actor we rarely saw in his gruff, ‘particular set of skills’ action movies. As he begins to think about life beyond these films, one hopes that this reignites his passion for acting in ways we’ve not seen him on screen before in a while. From the looks of his next project, a reboot of The Naked Gun by The Lonely Island, Neeson’s path definitely feels like the righteous one.