‘Retribution’ Review: It’s ‘Speed’ in a Mercedes Family SUV, as Liam Neeson Drives Like Mad
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In “Retribution,” which could be the title of almost any Liam Neeson film of the past 15 years, the 71-year-old star is still a lean, looming oak tree of a man, but for maybe the first time he’s up against a force that outpowers his sullen machismo.
It’s called trying to be a daddy in the 21st century. Neeson’s Matt Turner is a high-powered banker/financier who lives with his wife and two kids in a palatial modernist glass house in Berlin.
Neeson has often played devoted fathers — that was the whole premise of “Taken,” which kicked off the Neeson-as-seething-roughneck-of-vengeance genre back in 2008. (“Death Wish,” the 1974 Charles Bronson thriller that’s one of the stone tablets of the genre, was all about angry payback rooted in the reverence for family.
How Republican!) But in “Retribution,” Matt gets no respect from his tween daughter, Emily (Lilly Aspell), or his arrogant teenage son, Zach (Jack Champion).
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