In the Land of Saints and Sinners Review

There he goes, rushing off into the twilight years of his career without so much as a second glance at the charming character actor he could have been. Ordinary Love was just a gag. A bit of reel fodder for Liam Neeson to prove he could still work a crowd and bring them to the verge of tears. Now living it up in his 70s and picking projects for the sake of shooting, sprinting and surviving the throes of the action genre, Neeson lands himself In the Land of Saints and Sinners, a piece which inevitably has Colm Meany in it. You do not need to look at the trailer to know this. Do not be surprised if Ciarán Hinds shows up too.  

There we go. Ducks to water, moths to light, Irish actors to the glow of Neeson and an action vehicle where they can rest easy and go well into the gentle, action night. Mock it no more – this is a gutsy Venice Film Festival selection. For those who have been before, the bar toward the roundabout with the rented villas is the place to go for a burger and a cold pint or eight. Anyway, get yourself loaded before heading to something you think might be boring. The Eternal Daughter is much better when you fall asleep behind Tilda Swinton and In the Land of Saints and Sinners is better with a few pints in your system as you chart your way through an IRA-clad experience which features a whole host of recognisable faces but not the Kerry Condon morality drive which follows the life of Finbar Murphy (Neeson). 

Though the work of director Robert Lorenz has improved marginally in quality since his previous Neeson encounter on The Marksman, the culturally wound expectations and the shoehorned message which does not fit in with the writing he adapts make for a rather poor show. Hinds and Neeson have a Sergeant Butterman and Police Inspector Angel back-and-forth to them, the plucky Hot Fuzz couple is a surprise to behold and works nicely enough. Charmed and a neat lead-up to the action which has, as with many of the Neeson films to follow Taken, followed suit for the hardman. He puffs on a pipe and beats up those thirty years his junior – and it works wonderfully as he displays some quality acting once more.  

His pride and joy is a Remington and the effectiveness of the weapon as a plot navigator, from the buddy bits at the start to the inevitable bloodshed later is soundtracked by booming brass and a sense of small-town riots. Those moments of isolation and rural Ireland linger on the mind still after The Banshees of Inisherin though the action-packed spectacle of an old man out of step with the changing tides is a neat pace change. Jack Gleeson is a neat addition and looks the typical leather-clad, porn-moustachioed supporting type ripped straight from the set of Free Fire. They all get the job done as does Meany and company, the stacked cast hoping to lend their hands to building Irish cinema to a new dawn – and it works. An action of substance and dramatics first, bloodied headshots and revenge second.