More saunter than walk

September 20, 2014 07:54 pm | Updated 07:54 pm IST

A Walk Among the Tombstones

A Walk Among the Tombstones

You’ll regret walking in late for A Walk among the Tombstones : the movie opens quite literally with a bang. Within the first two minutes, New York cop Matt Scudder (played to gritty perfection by Liam Neeson) comes out guns blazing, as he sharp-shoots three robbers who kill the owner of the diner he’s stopped at for a drink (while on duty!). That episode, however, involves a ‘friendly fire’ casualty, leaving Scudder scarred for life: he surrenders his police badge and becomes an unlicensed gumshoe, although it also persuades him to get on the wagon and attend AA support group meetings.

But what starts off as a (brisk) walk turns pretty soon into a lazy saunter, with director Scott Frank packing in too many distracting subplots and secondary characters from Lawrence Block’s novel on which the film is based. The frequent loss of tempo leaves an otherwise thrilling film fatally flawed.

The problem with this flick is Frank’s (somewhat understandable) preoccupation with fleshing out the tortured Scudder character, given that he has an exemplary actor playing it. Neeson has performed similar roles ( Taken , Taken 2 , Unknown ) so often that it’s just a walk in the park for him. (And, in fact, Frank does send Neeson off on several such walks around the park, with the camera lingering obsessively on him with the unblinking focus of an arthouse production.)

Neeson, of course, exudes a broad-shouldered physicality, and he does infuse the Scudder character with gravelly-voiced gravitas, and virtually fills every frame in the film. But even so, Frank’s indulgence of the Scudder character grates beyond a point, particularly because the action sequences — when they do eventually unfold — are gripping.

There’s a sense of creeping horror as Scudder goes on the trail of a pair of sadistic vigilantes who are targeting drug dealers for a shakedown — and the kidnapping-murder of a loved one. In those few scenes, everything from the cinematography to lighting to the background score fuse masterfully to get your nerves jangling and your hair to stand on edge. But just when you’re quivering with heightened expectation, Frank sends Neeson on another walkabout, causing the plotline to lose stride. And somewhat bizarrely, the thrilling climactic scene is played out to the background score of a sonorous reading of the 12-Step programme of the Alcoholics Anonymous that Scudder attends. It’s perhaps intended as a subliminal message about the personal redemption of Scudder the erstwhile alcoholic, but it makes for a colossal mismatch of cinematic moods.

In the final analysis, A Walk … thrills, but not enough. Which is a pity, because it has the seeds of a great film embedded in it.

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