Over the past year and change, Liam Neeson has embraced his humorous side. Last year’s The Naked Gun reboot was hailed as one of the standout comedies of 2025, having him carry on the torch for the late Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin Jr. At the start of 2026, Samuel Goldwyn Films also featured him in the horror comedy creature feature Cold Storage with Joe Keery and Sosie Bacon, while, next month, he’ll be reeled in for one final job in the darkly funny crime film 4 Kids Rob a Bank. That doesn’t mean he’s done with the action thriller genre that he’s known and loved for, though.
Announced back in 2024, The Mongoose is set to release on October 30 and will place Neeson in the role of another relatable hero worth rooting for on the worst day of his life. He plays Ryan ”Fang” Flanagan, a decorated war veteran accused of murder, who decides to lead the authorities on a high-octane car chase across the country — think The Fugitive on steroids. As he speeds down the road in a Mustang Shelby Cobra GT 65, an enraptured public watches on, cheering for his escape while his brothers in arms do what they can to help him evade a relentless police pursuit. Ahead of its premiere, Collider can exclusively share the official trailer, showing how he wound up in this mess with nothing left to lose and the world watching his every move.
The footage begins with Flanagan on the road with his ex-wife pleading for him to turn himself in. Remembering his time at war, however, he refuses to be captured again, especially after how this all began. A quick flashback finds him in a hospital with his ex, who’s sporting a nasty bruise after an altercation with her current partner. When Flanagan goes to their home to get her stuff and confront her abuser, things quickly go south, and he gets shot, though his attacker is fatally injured by the fall. Knowing how bad it looks, he chooses the only option he believes he has: to steal one of the man’s cars and go on the run. It kicks off a battle of wits and speed between Flanagan and the police, led by a ruthless Michael Chiklis, who is sparing no expense, man, or arm to take him down, dead or alive. To even the odds, his fellow war veterans, whether they fought in the same conflict or not, run interference as he races towards The Mongoose, his only hope of getting out alive.
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.
Who Else Joins Neeson’s Star-Studded Car Chase in ‘The Mongoose’?
At the helm of The Mongoose in his directorial debut is someone Neeson is intimately familiar with — his go-to stunt double, Mark Vanselow. The two have worked on countless projects together over the years, including some of the star’s best work, like the Taken films, The Ice Road, and The Naked Gun. For his first feature, he works with a script by Hit List writer Thompson Evans and a starry supporting group, including Marisa Tomei, Ving Rhames, Marcus Thomas, and Maurice Marvel Meredith. Rounding out the team are producers Al Corley, Bart Rosenblatt, and Eugene Musso.
The Mongoose debuts in theaters on October 30. Check out the exclusive trailer in the player above.
