Film review: ‘The Commuter’

“The Commuter” merrily flips between subgenres, from whodunit to runaway train to hostage hotbox.|

Domestic train travel has never been less appealing and yet it’s boom times for locomotive cinema. As they prepared to make “The Commuter,” execs at Lionsgate Films looked at the prestige picture “Murder on the Orient Express” and decided that, instead of Poirot twirling his mustache and noodling over obscure clues, they’d show Liam Neeson shouting at strangers and slamming heads into seatbacks.

Neeson is Mike McCauley, a man who regrets ever leaving his detective work for the NYPD when his new job as an insurance salesman ends with a surprise dismissal. He says somewhat forlornly to his executioner, “I’m 60 years of age.”

After a despondent brew with old partner Det. Alex Murphy (Patrick Wilson) and loathed former Capt. Dave Hawthorne (Sam Neill), Mike hops on the Metro North to the burbs. What he plans to tell his wife (Elizabeth McGovern) is unclear. Where have ye gone, bar car?

To help his college-bound (and soon to be tuition-owing) son, Mike is always reading high school English books. On this day, he cracks “The Grapes of Wrath”- the Irish immigrant no doubt feeling as exploited by capitalism as those old Okies. But he soon finds himself not in a canonical tale of social realism but instead a dime store pulp piece.

An unsettling well-kempt woman named Joanna (Vera Farmiga) arrives and asks Mike, “What kind of person are you?” Then - as if intuiting his exact financial situation! - she offers him $100K to find a passenger who “doesn’t belong” on the train. He need not kill the person, just place a tracking device on them.

While alarmed by the offer, Mike decides he just wants to see if there is in fact cash hidden in the restroom… and there is. The moment he riffles those bills, Joanna considers him beholden to her plot and cements the bond by telling him she’s kidnapped his wife to assure his compliance. Mean, but effective.

He turns to his fellow daily commuters, Walt (Jonathan Banks) and Tony (Andy Nyman), for assistance but they are not helpful against the extensive tentacles of the now-disappeared Joanna, who appears to have many people on the train to bump off those unwilling to play the game. She checks in periodically to hiss something threatening over the phone - “I can get to anyone!” - to which Mike usually responds with half-hearted comebacks like, “I’m done playing games!”

Mike must rely on his skills as an ex-copper to find the mystery rider, so he immediately starts to profile groups - his targets include spoiled millennials, posh bankers and men with neck tattoos. The script leans rather heavily on its working-class politics, giving a literal middle finger to a former Goldman Sachs broker, whom he deems barely worth saving. Finally, Mike has the bright idea to herd everyone to the back car where, regardless of the danger, at least the air conditioning works.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra is familiar with Neeson from the string of potboilers they’ve made together and “The Commuter” merrily flips between subgenres, from whodunit to runaway train to hostage hotbox.

One wonders why, if Joanna can kill anyone with a snap of her fingers, she doesn’t just eliminate everyone going to the end of the line. But we’re nevertheless grateful that she chooses to torment Liam Neeson for our entertainment.

The realest moment for those of us who commute every day is the woman who continues reading her tablet with earbuds at max volume as men fight to the death inches from the back of her head.

“The Commuter” is a predictable but still enjoyable depiction of solidarity between people who would otherwise have spent the 90-minute ride avoiding eye contact with each other.

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