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Retribution was directed by Nimrod Antal, written by Christopher Salmanpour, and stars Liam Neeson, Lilly Aspell, Jack Champion, Matthew Modine, Noma Dumezweni, and Embeth Davidtz. It follows a father who must race across a city and adhere to a stranger’s demands to save his kids after finding a bomb in his car.

The Plot: We’ve been doing all of this for a while now. The stuck-in-place setting, the pissed off and forgotten antagonist, and the third act twist. Because Retribution is the third remake of a 2015 Spanish movie, it’s all the more tired and obvious.

Business-minded father Matt Turner (Neeson) has been tasked with taking his kids, Emily (Aspell) and Zach (Champion) to school because of his wife Heather’s (Davidtz) unavailability. While taking business calls handed down from his boss, Anders (Modine), during the drive, Matt picks up an unclaimed phone left in his car, but it’s not a voice he wants to hear, as it informs him of a bomb under his seat that will go off if anyone leaves the vehicle. Unsurprisingly, the voice has a task list that keeps him treading water in broad daylight until a line gets crossed.

Said line is when Matt is forced to watch his client explode as an example to him. This, along with a financial demand, is pinned on Matt, which introduces a police presence in the form of Angela (Dumezweni) as a subplot. Again, this is assembly line plotting, but the filmmakers are fine with that, and a genre movie like this doesn’t require much more to function, but it would’ve been nice. Retribution drives in circles until one demand involving a direct murder puts Matt on an equally bland final act after a predictable reveal of the voice’s identity.

Barely functional and entirely rote, the plot of Retribution adds next to nothing to the cinemascape. It facilitates the strain on its characters but is uninteresting as a narrative.

The Characters: Continuing the trend of thinly sketched writing, Antal and the cast don’t have much to work with as far as personalities or backstories are concerned. All of the movie’s participants are archetypes, but only the lead even comes close to rising above that.

Matt is some kind of financial expert (we never find out what kind. Advisor? Hedge fund manager? Who knows.) that has lost his positive social skills. He ignores his wife and bickers with his kids instead of teaching them in lieu of sweet-talking clients into sticking with some kind of fledgling company when its stock drops. Not exactly likeable, but Retribution has a redemptive arc in mind – it’s been done plenty of times before but seeing the emotionally distant father become a protector is acceptably done. Neeson gives a strong performance, having to beg and plead with his adversary and lower his on-screen persona for a time, stretching his acting muscles again.

Family members aren’t given any arcs, small as they might’ve been compared to the lead’s. Emily is a sporty kid who’s still addicted to electronics, rarely taking her eyes off of whatever screen is in front of her, except to argue with Zach, who’d rather be doing typical teenager things and hanging out with his girlfriend. Equally disappointed with Matt is Heather, who can’t get through to her husband, resorting to divorce after putting up with his vacancy. All of this will change by the end, but that’s obvious. It’s canned characterization, but at least there’s some kind of conflict instead of a steady agreeance.

Because the voice is mostly a presence, there’s little else to talk about here. Retribution sticks closely to formula, but the actors do what they can to make their facades interesting.

The Thrills: It’s hard to turn what is now an old trick into something white-knuckled or surprising, something this movie clearly displays, but there’s still some engaging setpieces and heightened moments littered about the feature.

Nervousness is effectively sold in Retribution, mostly due to Neeson’s performance and the writer’s choice to make Matt gradually go from dismissal to horror upon getting a call from the unseen threat. There’s a biker who happens to follow Matt’s car and gets brake checked for it – an easy red herring to spot, and the aforementioned murder of his client, but this helps far more than it hurts, familiar as it may be. The characters continue clamming up throughout a majority of the runtime, adding to the authentic terror they’re experiencing, even if the audience will have no doubts as to who will survive.

While the characters demonstrate fear, the antagonist has a hard time maintaining enough pressure to keep the outside factors on a similar threat level. After his investor is killed, the voice not only allows Matt to slow down the process of handing over a large sum of money (it’s always money), but to slow down his driving speed as well. If the culprit wanted to make a clean getaway, why bother causing enough ruckus to get the cops involved before receiving it? Incongruous choices like this stifle the potential of the premise, keeping the movie at odds with itself for a significant portion of the middle stretch.

Probably hoping to keep Neeson’s most loyal fans happy, Retribution eventually gives up on its gimmick, allowing the Turner kids to exit the vehicle without much fuss, and soon gives the same opportunity to Matt. Excitement diminishes after this point, as the script is more concerned with exposition than creating a blistering finale, allowing the movie to fizzle out from a decent first half.

The Technics: Many of Neeson’s action movies and thrillers have a similar look and feel, with slick but unexceptional presentation thanks to journeyman helmers and repeated collaborations. This is another in that category.

Because Antal doesn’t have a signature style, and the movie’s muddy palette, there’s only so much that can be done to set the feature apart. There are some flourishes, a couple practical explosions, and some competent cinematography from Flavio Labiano that take advantage of the handsome locations beyond the car, but these things aren’t enough to lift a fairly limp thriller. Neither is the middling music from the normally dependable Harry Gregson-Williams, whose work is noticeable but instantly forgettable.

Cliche dialogue that can’t be patched over riddles the script, tainting some well-acted moments, but what the filmmakers of Retribution at least get right is the pacing and editing. It’s not a seamless journey from start to finish, but Steve Mirkovich keeps the outside world intelligible and the runtime lean. Maybe that’s faint praise for a movie of this ilk, but at least the backend choices aren’t outright irritating.

Retribution boasts a very good performance from Neeson, but it has nothing else to make it worth viewing. It has a tightly wound first act, but it’s ultimately ruined by a lifeless script and workmanlike production values.

45/100