One of Liam Neeson‘s most underseen thrillers recently resurfaced on streaming in a grand fashion, three years after its theatrical release. The movie received poor reviews and underperformed commercially, but it appears to have found an audience at home. Neeson has always been highly popular in the PVOD and streaming arenas, with several of his movies using theatrical runs as advertising for their eventual home video release. This appears to be the case with Neeson’s 2023 thriller, whose premise might make you recall the genre favorites Phone Booth and Speed.
The movie features Neeson as a man who is trapped in his car after receiving a threat that it’ll explode if he gets out. With a bomb under his seat, the protagonist has no choice but to play along with his tormentor while maintaining a facade of calm. The movie also features Matthew Modine, Embeth Davidtz, Jack Champion, and Noma Dumezweni. The movie was directed by Nimród Antal, who previously made the action reboot Predators, and the heist thriller Armored. Jaume Collet-Serra, who worked with Neeson on some of his most successful action movies, served as one of the producers.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Liam Neeson Remains a Fan-Favorite
We’re talking about the film Retribution, which debuted theatrically in 2023, grossing just under $19 million against a reported budget of $20 million. The film holds a 30% critics’ score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “Retribution may prove mildly diverting for hardcore fans of films depicting Liam Neeson as a parent in peril, but in most respects, this thriller is strictly standard stuff.” The film’s significantly higher 67% audience score on the aggregator website seems to be doing the heavy lifting. According to Netflix’s latest viewership report, Retribution was among the most-watched movies on the platform during the week of June 29 to July 5. The movie accumulated 3.9 million views, finishing fourth on the top 10 chart. It trailed the new release Enola Holmes 3, which led the pack with 20 million views in its debut week, and the holdover hits Voicemails for Isabelle and Little Brother. You can watch Retribution on Netflix, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
Release Date
August 23, 2023
Runtime
91 minutes
Director
Nimród Antal
Writers
Chris Salmanpour
Producers
Andrew Rona, Luc Etienne, Mercedes Gamero, Emma Lustres, Jaume Collet-Serra, Ron Halpern, Alex Heineman, Juan Solá, Shana Eddy-Grouf
