‘The Mongoose’ Review: Liam Neeson Goes on the Run in a Bland Actioner

The first film directed by veteran stunt coordinator Mark Vanselow works too hard to generate sympathy for Neeson's fugitive war hero.

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Since the days of “Vanishing Point” and Steven Spielberg’s “The Sugarland Express,” Hollywood has been making films about fugitives in fast cars who become media-sensation folk heroes. Companies like American International Pictures and Roger Corman’s New World Pictures would deliver movies like this a few times a year back in the 1970s, while simultaneously introducing a separate strain of exploitation stories about American veterans who return from Vietnam out of step from, or in conflict with, their civilian counterparts. Several decades and countless copycats of “Rolling Thunder” and “First Blood” later, there’s “The Mongoose,” a film conceived in the spirit of those twin subgenres, but without a single deeper thought in its script than “honoring the troops” and showcasing the capabilities of a Shelby Super Snake.

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Starring Liam Neeson as a war hero on the run from the cops, the directorial debut of stunt coordinator Mark Vanselow delivers lots of vehicular action, some of it quite fun. But despite a stacked supporting cast (including Marisa Tomei, Ving Rhames and Michael Chiklis), the script by Thompson Evans is so committed…

Original source: https://variety.com/v/tv/

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