Review: Absolution (2024) Movie
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When Liam Neeson's nameless gangster first appears in Absolution, we immediately assume this is a period piece. The character's car, clothes, and beard look like they're from the 1970s, but soon people in the story call the guy a relic, and it becomes clear that we're in the present day. But our guy is stuck in the past - and not just because of his clothes or sideburns.
Neeson's presence also gives the impression that Hans Petter Moland's film might be action-focused, since it's about Boston criminals making shady deals, and the actor's subsequent career has made him a star in genre vehicles. But lately, Neeson has shied away from action star roles, even in films that look and function similarly, and his performance in this film is no exception to that trend. Although he punches, kicks and shoots several times in the story, this character has reached a stage in his life where he realizes how much time he has wasted on violence, on anger, on acting without question on other violent, angry men.
This is a surprisingly introspective story of a man who wants to change but is constantly reminded that he has ruined his life so badly that no one wants that or cares what he wants. He is really stuck and, to make matters worse, he is losing his memory because of all the beatings he received from his angry, violent father from his early years as a professional boxer and of course as a small-time thug in local crime. The boss had to.
This is where things get a little too complicated in Tony Gayton's script. It is clearly not enough for this character to be trapped in a private hell determined by her circumstances and her own invention. Apparently, because this isn't a counterintuitive enough trick, Neeson's bully is also diagnosed with CTE, caused by numerous concussions from playing football and boxing and getting punched all over the place. There are scenes where he can't remember his family, his criminal accomplices, phone numbers, addresses, but the fact that he's supposedly on a mission to remember everything good that's left in his life isn't the fact that he's on a mission to solve it before it's too late.
The illness in this story is mainly a distraction, serving to prolong certain storylines, especially those that involve the criminal underworld, which is the best-known but least interesting element of the story, and the stakes against them. Add something concrete to the picture. He basically just needs to figure out what he needs to do to fix everything he can before his memory continues to deteriorate and it's time for the doctors to pronounce him incompetent. At this point, nothing matters to him anymore. You can watch this movie on Afdah live website:
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