A bank executive receives a bomb threat while driving his children to school that his car will explode if they stop and get out.
A bank executive, Matt Turner (Liam Neeson), living in Berlin with his family, gets into his car one morning with his son Zach (Jack Champion) and daughter Emily (Lilly Aspell) and sits down, inadvertently arming a bomb that has been strategically placed under his seat. He receives a phone call from an unknown number from a person using a voice changer, who informs him that the bomb will detonate if he or his kids leave their seats or if he tries to reach out to the police for help. Now Matt must do everything the voice on the phone tells him or risk losing his life and the lives of his two children.
“Retribution” steals the basic plot from the 1994 Jan de Bont-directed, Keanu Reeves-starrer, “Speed,” but without any of the nail-biting suspense, tension, or top-notch action that permeated throughout that film. I do have to give kudos to the movie’s director, Nimród Antal, for choosing to set the film in Berlin and not Los Angeles or New York or any other American city where movies of this ilk typically transpire. In a very undemanding physical role – Neeson spends most of the film seated behind the wheel – he gives a fine performance, as do Jack Champion and Lilly Aspell, the actors who portray his two children. It was good seeing Neeson and Embeth Davidtz share the screen again, their last movie being Spielberg’s holocaust drama, “Schindler’s List” in 1993.
The film is beautifully shot by cinematographer Flavio Martínez Labiano (“Jungle Cruise,” “The Shallows”), who foregoes the customary handheld shaky-cam technique that many movies of this type employ to try and heighten a sense of immersion into the story. Personally, I can do without that method, but thankfully, writers Alberto Marini, Christopher Salmanpour, and director Nimród Antal infuse enough character development and story exposition that we’re not distracted by the camerawork, only focused on the performances at hand.
The overall narrative is underwhelming, and the few action set-pieces we do have are formulaic at best, but Neeson manages to keep us engrossed in his character and the story at hand. The film tries to surprise us with a big twist at the end, but when the revelation is finally presented to us, it’s anticlimactic, resulting in a shrug of the shoulders instead of an “Oh My God!” moment the filmmakers intended. “Retribution” isn’t the worst movie out there, but it most certainly isn’t the best. Here’s hoping that Neeson will find his winning streak again and maybe even give us a “Taken 4.”
In Theaters Friday, August 25th
