Run All Night (DVD)

Family ties, safety overtakes long friendships.......good friends become mortal enemies. One of the best Liam Neeson movies.

The back stories of both the hero and villain were generously developed before the violent action took over the film about half way through. This was a character driven story which probed father and son and friendship issues in a world of violence and greed which poisoned even the sincerest relationship. The tragic story was heightened by a moral awareness that those we call family redeem our lives when they seem hopelessly lost. The ending is honest, brutal, but uplifting in its moral lesson about family love prevailing. Acting and writing are superior with committed performances by Neeson and Harris but the action scenes are splendid!

'Run All Night' is a tough film with plenty of action. In fact much of the action will have you on the edge of your seat. Rooting for the good guys who may be the bad guys, it is all convoluted. Liam Neeson, plays Jimmy Conlon, a has been mob enforcer. In fact so bad he has dreams of the people he killed. he worked for the toughest of the mob, Shawn Maguire, played by Ed Harris. Jimmy wakes up in a bar, and just starts drinking again. He now scrounges money from Shawn’s son Danny, played terrifically by Boyd Holbrook. Hence the tough guy is now a laughing stock. He had a family he never paid much attention to. His son, Mike, played by Joel Kinnaman. Kinnaman was the driving force detective in the series, 'The Killing'. He us living the straight life, working as a limo driver. He has a wife and two children. So, here are the players. Danny has mixed with an Albanian mob to bring drugs into his father's business. Dad wants nothing to do with it and says no. Danny is in big trouble, and when the Albanian mob shows up that night, all Hell breaks loose. Mike is the chauffeur test drove the Albanians to Danny's office. He gets mixed up in the fireworks, and he and his father, Jimmy take off. The film centers around Shawn McGuire's hunt for both Mike and Jimmy, and the FBI looking for all of them. A very tense action oriented film, with tough guys, violence gore and grits. If this is your forte, than this film is for you. Recommended. prisrob 06-16-15

The preview for "Run All Night" reminded me of the movie "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" for it's in-your-face depiction of another part of the Crimeworld. I knew many of the areas in Boston in TFEC. I was living in Boston and Charlestown in the '70's. Crime and criminals were all around me, even as I attended a local community college, as the poorest of work-study students; living in a one-room studio, in a gritty, seedy, brownstone in Monument Square. $50 a week for work-study; $30 for rent and $20 dollars for the rest of the week. The best light in the room was when I opened the refrigerator because it was usually empty. Sharing a bathroom with at least two other people. Cockroaches usually passed me by because there was nothing for them to work on. Hearing an ex-wrestler in his weekly shakedown of the building super and his wife. Wondering why there was so much screaming and yelling going in the apartment above me. Figuring out the loud "thumps!" were the body of the super being knocked to the floor by the ex-wrestler for some reasons of there not being enough money for the burly man with a heavy Eastern accent. The NYC locales of "Run All Night" were very similar to many to places in Boston and Charlestown. Run-down neighborhoods; houses close together; alleys everywhere leading to nowhere or a life of crime. In RAN Liam Neeson was desperate to keep his son out of "the life." I identified with the thin veils separating the crimeworld from the college world I was living in. You'd bump into all sorts of characters that could have come from either world at any time. There was no father to protect me from being dragged into the the Clan of Crime--only Common Sense and my wits kept me from that life. Yes, "Run All Night" gets 5 stars from me because it brought back so many memories of the wild times in Boston and Charlestown, Ma.. To many people, these movies may just be "entertainment" but to me, "Run All Night" and "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" are documentaries about the places I have been and about the places I escaped from...

THE FILM: I saw RUN ALL NIGHT in theaters during my Spring Break, and remember feeling pretty OK about it at the time. It certainly wasn't boring, by any stretch of the imagination. Now having seen it for the second time, without the rose-colored glasses of being in a theater, I feel like it's not Liam Neeson's strongest outing in a genre that's quickly become his own. It certainly doesn't lack for good performances and action, but the characters and situations were rather weak. There was also too many plot threads given the storyline and none of them were really given enough time to develop, even at nearly two hours. Far and away the best members of the cast were Liam Neeson and Ed Harris. Despite expecting the audience to take away that they were long-time best friends on so little, the grizzled appearances and speech patterns adequately suggested a lived-in friendship and the effect of living a hard life. Joel Kinnaman was OK as Liam Neeson's son, but falters somewhat in the more dramatic, intimate moments. Vincent D'Onofrio also has a glorified cameo as one of the few good cops, but he wasn't really given much to do. Common also has a small role as a hired assassin, but his was one of the few parts that probably could have been left out. The action, however, was quite good when it happened. There was a good balance of hand-to-hand combat and gun-play that was shot fairly well. The R rating also helped because there wasn't a need to obscure the more graphic aspects. Lastly, the score was OK insofar as it didn't get in the way of the story. It was quite forgettable otherwise. Overall, it seems like Liam Neeson might be getting tired of doing this whole "action star" bit. He should probably get out while the quality is relatively good (barring the two TAKEN sequels). The performances and action are good, but the story is a bit overstuffed and the pacing makes it kind of a chore to sit through at times. Recommended if you like Liam Neeson's action movies, but honestly there are a number of them to pick before I'd choose this one again. THE EXTRAS; There isn't too much in the way of special features here, but I didn't really expect a lot either. Half of the material is contained in two short featurettes, totaling about 17 minutes. The first, SHOOT ALL NIGHT, goes into some detail on how the film was shot (at night, primarily). While the story wasn't particularly original or special, it was nice to see that there was a decent amount of on-location shooting in New York to lend the film some authenticity. The second featurette focuses on Liam Neeson and his character, Jimmy. This is the third film that Liam Neeson and Jaume Collet-Serra have done together, and the ease of working together is there and present (to a degree) onscreen. It's also quite obvious that the cast had fun working together. Following these two featurettes are about 16 minutes worth of deleted/extended scenes. None of them came across as particularly essential (and therefore worthy of being cut), but they did provide some extra screen time and dramatic moments for a few characters who didn't have much of it in the finished film. My favorite was the first one, the full flashback of Jimmy (Neeson) killing a certain character who is an important plot point, and which segues into Jimmy waking up at the bar. OVERALL: RUN ALL NIGHT might not have too much in the way of originality, but Liam Neeson yet again proves he's a decent, and believable, action star. All of the actors look like they're at least having fun working with each other. Too bad it didn't translate into a more engaging thriller. The special features, while not exhaustive, were at least enough to whet my appetite given the quality and depth of the film. Liam Neeson fans will probably want to pick this up; it might be worth a rental for everyone else.

Excellent movie

Blu-ray Disc came in excellent condition

I loved this movie. It's been a long time since I saw a movie with real suspense, that is gritty, and had me wondering "is he going to live through the night"? I love how they incorporated different aspects. I like how it went from the city out into a little bit of country. I love that Liam Neeson uses a revolver and later on a lever action rifle. I didn't know how Ed Harris would be in this, but he played the part very well. I was also impressed with, I forget his name now, but he was in the TV show The Killing, and he was really good in this movie. I will see it again.