Review: A Walk Among the Tombstones

The first time I saw Liam Neeson was in a 1984 television miniseries named A Woman of Substance. It was, to use an old term, " a woman's picture" as well as an adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's era-spanning novel. It tracked the life of one Emma Harte from her humble beginnings as a servant in Yorkshire to her rise as a prominent businesswoman. Neeson was Blackie O'Neill, her trusted friend, always by her side through thick and thin. It was a secondary character but you took note of Neeson, whose tenderness was at odds with his hulking figure.

Thirty years on, Neeson is still standing and as an action figure no less. With the Taken series potentially winding down, A Walk Among the Tombstones positions itself as a somewhat quieter alternative. Neeson stars as Matthew Scudder, a former cop and alcoholic turned unlicensed private detective ("I do favours for people. In return they give me gifts."). Approached by a fellow AA member Peter (Boyd Holbrook), Scudder reluctantly takes on a case involving Peter's drug-dealing brother Kenny Kristo (Dan Stevens, a long way from the genteel confines of Downton Abbey). Kenny's wife was taken, he paid the ransom but the kidnappers chopped up his wife anyway, packaging her body parts like bricks of cocaine. Kenny wants Scudder to track down the killers so he can make them pay.

It's no accident that pulp heroes Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe are mentioned in A Walk in the Tombstones. Writer-director Scott Frank has shown a knack for noir, whether in his underrated directorial debut The Lookout or in his screenplays for Dead Again, Malice and especially Out of Sight. Here he presents a throwback to those hardboiled but philosophical private eyes; the movie is essentially a series of interrogation scenes bookended by a simple set up and a grisly conclusion.

Frank and cinematographer Mihai Malaimare, Jr. invest what is a fairly standard potboiler with a compelling atmosphere and a certain baroque seediness. David Harbour and Adam David Thompson are suitably creepy, if a bit bland, as the serial killers. It has to be said that Frank's decision to keep them in the shadows for most of the first half may have been a misstep; the phone conversations between Harbour and Neeson as Scudder negotiates the release of the killers' latest catch are a good source of tension as well as demonstrations of Scudder's preference to talk rather than shoot his way out of a situation.

Of the carousel of characters questioned by Scudder, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson unsettles as a suspicious groundskeeper. His rooftop scene, prominent in the film's trailer, may be the film's best moment.

A Walk Among the Tombstones

Directed by: Scott Frank

Written by: Scott Frank; adapted from Lawrence Block's novel

Starring: Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens, David Harbour, Adam David Thompson, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Astro