A Walk Among the Tombstones
Dir. Scott Frank
Liam Neeson's career is the reverse of every other big movie star: He starts out starring in mostly serious dramas like Schindler's List and Michael Collins, then as he gets ripe with age, cements himself as an action hero in films like Taken and Unknown. A Walk Among the Tombstones, based on a crime novel by Lawrence Block, continues Neeson's line of tough guy flicks in a neo-noir about a private detective hired to find out what happened to a man's wife, murdered despite her husband paying the ransom. An ex-alcoholic turned clean, Neeson eventually decides to take the case, enlisting the help of a random homeless kid he meets in the library. Yeah, I don't understand it myself, but the kid (played by "Astro" Bradley, a young rapper from the first season of The X-Factor) did a pretty good job bouncing off Neeson, filling him in on all the "street lingo" he needs to know; if only the script was better, it could've been a K and J-type relationship a la Men in Black, but it just ends up feeling pointless. The character solely exists for us to care about him.
