Is Liam Neeson the new Mel Gibson?
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There’s a new pseudo-Gothic horror flick on the horizon called After.Life. That’s After-dot-Life. This film, coming to your neighborhood soon (if you live on one of the coasts) has nothing whatsoever, its filmmakers tell us, to do with Hirokazu Horeeda’s wonderful 1998 film, After/Life (After-slash-Life, see the difference?), despite the fact that it has pretty much the same title and central concept of the possibly-living dealing with the recently-dead, but hey, what do I know? The makers of After-dot-Life give no props to After-slash-Life, instead offering in the press notes lengthy narratives about when “inspiration” struck (and it wasn’t when they had, say, sat down with a bowl of popcorn to watch a Japanese film called After/Life). I think they were actually in the bathroom at the time.
Do you remember the trouble Vanilla Ice got into (well, first off, do you remember Vanilla Ice?) a while back? He’d obviously sampled the song Under Pressure, by Queen and David Bowie. The bass line of the song had been said to be one of the most famous in bass line history, or something. And for Ice, Ice Baby, Mr. Vanilla sampled it, lifted it, stole it, call it what you will. He used it. In court, defending himself, he said something like this:
“No your honor, like, my song’s totally different from that other song. Like, check it out. Theirs goes ‘duh duh duh du-du duh doo’ and mine goes, ‘duh duh duh du-du duh doo… chu-chuh.’” He actually said this. I swear.
So uh, yeah. Personally I think there’s a new lawsuit waiting to blossom here. And it’s perfect, because it’s finally Spring. But more on that in a later post. I wonder if Japanese lawyers advertise on their subway trains.
What really struck me about After-dot-Life, directed by a ripe up-and-comer fresh from the Sundance easy-bake oven, and starring a naked-almost-all-the-time Christina Ricci (fine by me), was the presence of Liam Neeson.
Neeson became a household name in the U.S. after playing Oskar Schindler, the man with a pretty important piece of paper in his pocket. That was seventeen years ago, and his performance earned him Academy kudos (though not actual awards). Before Schindler, Neeson had been involved with some great projects – Woody Allen’s Husbands & Wives; Roland Joffé’s The Mission – and some, well, questionable ones. Next of Kin and Satisfaction come to mind.
Before researching this post, I’d assumed that things had slipped, in terms of what he said “yes” to, at some point after Schindler. The truth, of course, is that there have been questionable choices from the start. Though it’s harder, in my opinion, to blame an up-and-coming actor than one at the top of the A-list. But maybe if saying “yes” to a week of work on Big Fat Exploding Robot from Hell 2 allowed me to buy myself, say, an island, I would have a hard time saying “no.” “No thank you, sirs. My artistic integrity is at stake. Keep your beautiful tropical island paradise. I’m fine in my Culver City studio.”
Sometimes a light saber is just a light saber.
And really, who could blame Neeson for accepting a role in the long-awaited prequel to George Lucas’s Star Wars saga? Before Lucas made those movies, people had pretty much forgotten all about Howard the Duck and Willow and, having not actually seen the first three Star Wars films since they were fifteen years old, and even then it was at the drive-in, in the back seat of their parents’ Fairlane, and their parents were fighting at the time, throwing around words like “divorce” and “live with grandma” and “move to Ohio,” which would have been pretty stressful, you know, or maybe it’s just me, but they still thought of the man as a film genius.
The best review I’ve read that expressed the sort of crushing disappointment we all had to absorb around the time of Phantom Menace wasn’t actually for that film at all; it was for the second Matrix flick. But I think the same sentiment applies: “Talk about blowing it,” it began. You said it. I think it was that one role, and the previously unknown or simply never-considered doors it blew wide open that marked a shift in quality in Neeson’s CV. It’s as if he woke up one day and said, “What do you know… I can play that guy.”
Hot of the heels of Menace, Neeson starred in the turgid remake of The Haunting, the original of which is actually pretty freaking scary, in an old skewl, pre-Saw, “we’ve actually got to figure out how to create tension” sorta way. After that came a bit of good and bad, and I don’t think Neeson can be blamed for choosing to work with usually fine filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Katherine Bigelow, or Neil Jordan in films that have nonetheless taken their place near the bottom, rather than top, of those directors’ filmographies.
Then came Batman Begins, another door-opening experience, and Neeson stepped, no, burst, through it to embrace what his impressive physical stature has always conveyed: power. Raw brute force. He’s not a soft spoken, seemingly kind Irish lad, he’s a blunt freaking instrument. Throw in some Kali and Jeet Kune Do (the hand-to-hand martial arts studied by Matt Damon for the Bourne series), some Parkour (the urban free-running fad first popularized by Taken’s director in District B13), and another bad mother is borne, er, born.
Gonna go all Travis Bickle on yo' ass...
So yes, Taken follows Batman, of course, and The A-Team follows Taken, and leads to a slew of those overwrought high-concept formula flicks that Hollywood seems so good at assembling in the factory, including what seems sure to be a soporific festival of CG blah-ness, Clash of the Titans. Titans, apparently, will clash. Who thought that up? How long did it take to come up with that line, I wonder? Though, I hear, no actual titans were harmed in the making of the film.
My wife tells me to go easy on poor Liam, and I feel immediately bad for writing a post with a title that compares him to crazy Mel Gibson. Mea culpa, Liam! But as you well know, we’re hardest on the ones we love. Sure, Neeson still seems to pick an interesting project every now and again. He will play Lincoln in Spielberg’s biopic, which could be good. One never knows. Even if it’s not good, it is at least an ambitious, seemingly serious project. And he will appear in Johnny To’s remake of Le Cercle Rouge, which could also be good but in actuality probably won’t be and is not at all a serious project. Ambitious maybe. We’ll see how much shit they blow up.
My main concern is that Neeson seems to have driven himself pretty firmly into a rut, the rut of the bad mo-fo. Too many, in my opinion, of Neeson’s recent (or upcoming) films have centered around the ideas of loss, revenge, and new-fangled ass-kicking. And eye for an eye, sucka! And, I know… I know… this is the way of the (Holly)world these days. Kids! What are you gonna do. We’re neck deep in an age of retribution. We’ve been trespassed against and a whole bunch of trespassing bastards will have to pay, and how. In this way we may blow off our collective steam. Or maybe we won’t. I just wish that Liam Neeson would, occasionally, let somebody else bring the hurt so that he can go back, now and then, to the kind of acting that requires more than a good kick to the groin.
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He was a surprise as Ra’s al Ghul, no? Not the guy I would have cast.
He was, and I enjoyed him in Batman, it must be said. That’s part of the problem (which probably means I’m the one with the problem): he’s really pretty good at playing these ass-kicking types! Though he’s good in Atom Egoyan’s next film, Chloe, opposite Julianne Moore, and he kicks no one’s ass.
In response to another comment. See in context »I can totally accept him as some big Irish tough (or whatever accent he can make work). He’s got the presence and physique. I just thought that Ra’s would have been a lot more exotic than Neeson played him. Eh, that’s just one character. Liam should let rip.
In response to another comment. See in context »Well, on a puddle-deep level, you are correct in comparing Neeson’s present “revenge-motivated” main man motifs to be reminiscent of what has basically been a staple of Gibson’s for the past 30 years.
However, if you get a little deeper than just the basic comparisons, you’d note that Gibson’s characters are not simple “average Joes” avenging a wrong. They are uber-moral righters of wrong. They are, in fact, Jesus the Avenger. Mel has been building and playing that role for basically his entire career.
And that role is pretty far from the current spate of Neeson’s typical Hollywood “average Joe seeking revenge” roles.
Moreover, Gibson wants – develops and creates – these roles. He seems to truly see Jesus as a guy who will, when he comes back, kick some SERIOUS MOTHER FUCKING ASS! Which comports quite closely with Gibson’s scary “moral” views on politics, Jews, etc…
Neeson’s just playing some typical Hollywood roles that he doesn’t create/develop – he just takes them because (a) that’s the box Hollywood wants him in and (b) they pay well.
BIG DIFFERENCE.
Good point, Joemag. Thanks.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mel Gibson is not crazy he is Australian.
Haha. A good distinction.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mike,
I have worked with Australians, lived with them, partied with them, argued with them and I love them. They fall into two groups generally…one are the snotty class that wants to be English and visit London after high school and study that upper class accent and talk about art and the delicate art of cooking duck and those that want to go to America to join a biker gang. I prefer the biker class of which Mel is a member…they have irrelevance to authority…to anything society deems as proper…they attack out of instinct.
I once spent a night in a hotel bar, a fancy upper class sort of joint, with a guy from Mad Max, a crazy friend who enjoyed fucking with the tank, that is yank, me…he was the guy tied to the car, Max Fairchild, plus I met an Australian journalist, an old school, vietnam war guy, covering the execution of two Australian teenagers in Malaysian for marijuana possession and his friend a priest who was the advance man for the Pope’s visit, plus there was a New York bartender who claimed he could calculate a perfect pour of martinis for any number of people, two seemingly normal businessmen entertaining some Hong Kong associates and a local woman who hated papists, loudly. Much to the amusement of the priest.
There is something about Australians that made it normal for the Bartender to take a bet he couldn’t do a perfect pour for everyone in the bar, for Hong Kong guys to ride on the back of Max like he was a wild stallion, for the associates to dance on a table, then get into a wrestling match, for the papist hater to end up in the priest’s room, for the small room to descend into chaos with outrageous assaults on Buddhism- and Catholics and Muslims murderers and idiot Americans while a bartender calmly polished glasses and for the reporter to recruit me on a mission to save the priest and the reputation of the Pope by getting the crazed anti-papist thrown out of the hotel. Mel’s rant on jews…who knew where that started…makes me think of how Fairchild saved the night…he picked up the weird but very hot catholic hater, threw her over his shoulder and said he would take her home…and laughed all the way down the staircase…the priest offered some tickets to a Pope event…the reporter said fuck you… and I went to bed with a new understanding of that that is the is Australian.
In response to another comment. See in context »Now I wish I’d spent some time in Australia! Excellent stories, libtree. You’re a damn born raconteur.
In response to another comment. See in context »Seems like many excellent actors fall into a habit of taking roles simply for a payday or because they feel compelled to stay in the public eye, lest they fade into obscurity. Think Brando, Caine, Olivier, Burton, and Hackman. Couple that with the pressure of Hollywood’s ‘blockbuster’ mentality and it’s almost inevitable that they knowingly take crap roles to maintain visibility and marketability. In the early days of Rock, acts like The Everly Brothers had to pump out a new single every six months to remain at the top. Can you imagine the pressure?
Hollywood doesn’t make B-films anymore. It’s either boom or bust. Few chances are taken so the writing, directing, and acting largely suck.
The Haunting heads up my list of the worst movies with the best casts (closely followed by Pushing Tin). But I would TOTALLY watch something called Big Fat Exploding Robot from Hell 2.
When I saw the headline, I worried Liam had perpetrated another “Sugartits” moment. Whew!
Whew indeed. Yeah, ‘The Haunting’ was a real stinker. I actually missed ‘Pushing Tin,’ but I did once try to sit through ‘Must Love Dogs.’ That’s at the top of my personal list, followed closely by ‘SATC: The Totally Unnecessary Movie.’ Get your twelve dollars carried away!
Maybe one day some rural drive in will do a retrospective of the whole Big Fat Exploding Robot from Hell series and we can go and sit in lawn chairs and yell at all the noisy kids.
In response to another comment. See in context »Short answer: No.
Liam Neeson is really not at all like Mel Gibson, if for no other reason (personal conduct aside) than the fact that Gibson has been a Hollywood player since the late eighties, by which I mean he’s been producing and directing major motion pictures since then. He has a production company called Icon that has proven quite robust among its peers. To wit: Apocalypto (2006), We Were Soldiers (2002), What Women Want (2000), The Three Stooges (2000), The Million Dollar Hotel (2000), An Ideal Husband (1999), Spice World (1997), FairyTale: A True Story (1997), One Eight Seven (1997), Anna Karenina (1997), Braveheart (1995), Immortal Beloved (1994) Maverick (1994), The Man Without a Face (1993), Forever Young (1992) and Hamlet (1990).
Gibson’s been influential, whether we choose to acknowledge his accomplishments or not, in a way that an actor like Liam Neeson hasn’t really comparatively endeavored.
Neeson is the classic contract player, the sort Jack Warner would have adored: He plays lots and lots of parts, regardless of the movie, genre, director, script. This has, of course, led to performances great and small. And he’s deftly portrayed quiet and brooding. At least he was persuasive in Love Actually and Gun Shy.
One could argue that he’s simply paying the mortgage by getting as much work as he can, the way any freelancer does.
Alternatively, he’s been working a great deal more over the course of the last 12 months, which may have something to do with the tragic death of his wife Natasha Richardson. Often people will bury themselves in work as part of their healing, denial or coping process. That may be the case here, and I won’t fault Neeson for keeping himself busy, providing for his children and making the most of his presence as a vital, physically commanding performer while he can as the years go on.
Also, his most lauded role to date is that of Oskar Schindler, not Arthur.
Doh! Oskar, of course. This is what happens when you are you own fact checker and you’re generally a sloppy person when it comes to facts.
You’re right, his workload is definitely on the upswing, and I imagine you may well be right as to the why of that. I’d be working my ass off too. It’s horrible what happened. I wonder what people will think when ‘After.Life’ comes out, a very morbid film in which Neeson plays a funeral director who may or may not be helping the recently dead through the whole dying process. He shot the film before the terrible death of his wife, but it’s just being released this spring, and the timing makes me cringe.
Thanks for the comments.
In response to another comment. See in context »1. i guess you could mention gangs of new york as a vengeful character too (short as his role was)… maybe michael collins would fit that mold to some degree…
2. i believe you mean ‘bass-line’, not baseline…
3. think i’ve seen him on some talk show where he essentially admitted what you claim: he takes roles based on the fact he wants to work -and make money- as an actor, NOT that he passes judgment on what each role may mean to his ouevre and only taking ‘quality’ parts in ‘quality’ movies…
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
My first impression is that Gibson has probably been more cunning and and clever in determining the arc of his own career, once he got to that point, than Neeson. I dislike Gibson’s public persona and most of his movies bore me, but he seems to know exactly what he’s trying to do and be fairly adept at doing it.
Neeson, by comparison, seems more likable and has a stage presence that I personally find more compelling, but he also seems to be a total and complete tool, bouncing from payola to payola and being used however the director sees fit. When he’s on a good project with a good script and a good director, he’s good. But he doesn’t seem to have any particular vision for what he wants to do.
It seems like too many “serious film people” project onto Leeson qualities they really wish were there.
Gibson may be a belligerent jerk, but he’s a belligerent jerk who knows what he wants and how to project it. So it’s a weird situation–I don’t like Gibson, I don’t like his projects, I do like Neeson on screen and I do like some of his projects; and yet in a comparison between the two I think Neeson comes up short. Whatever else he is, Gibson is formidable; and whatever else he is, Neeson is negligible.
Thanks Azaz, you’ve got a great take on this situation. It certainly does happen that we sometimes develop a maybe begrudging respect for or, possibly, appreciation of the man who is driven by…. something. Anything. And you’re totally right. Gibson is, has been for years (as another reader also pointed out), driven by a pretty unwavering ethos of payback, a can of woopass point-of-view. Thanks for bringing your own pov to the table.
In response to another comment. See in context »Neeson was taking his revenge on those who woud do him harm way back in 1990 in Darkman, which comes up on TV from time to time and I always enjoy. There’s a great line in it, when the baddie is pleading that he had nothing to do with the death of his partner. Neeson’s reply:
Let’s pretend you did!
I wish I’d thought of that line.
I’m a big Raimi fan. In addition to that line, I think ‘Darkman’ also contains what must be the best – certainly the most direct – cross dissolve in film history. You remember when Francis McDormand arrives at the lab? She’s still outside, on the sidewalk I think, when it blows. Raimi cross-dissolved (there were effects involved, if memory serves) to her standing, flowers in hand, graveside, at the funeral! I can almost hear Raimi snickering just off-camera. It was inspired.
I think a lot of times, these guys end up with a choice between being an actor and a movie star. A movie star’s roles may not be as interesting, but actors don’t make private island money. And LN perfectly fills Hollywood’s need for a man of stature and gravitas to fill the wise-but-still-commanding elder roles in movies like Star Wars, Batman, and Titans. Nothing wrong with that, I guess. And the great thing about being a movie star is that Woody Allen, Atom Egoyan, and the like will always keep calling, so you still get to be an actor every once in a while.
Anyway, I think we know why your wife is taking this so personally. Patriotism is clouding her judgment.
I think you’re right!
In response to another comment. See in context »