Blacklight (2022)

Blacklight (2022)

 3/10

Starring

Liam Neeson

Emmy Raver-Lampman

Taylor John Smith

Aidan Quinn

 

Directed by Mark Williams

 

Blacklight is panned by critics and seen by some as one of the worst things to see on screen and as I do not agree that it is the worst thing to see on-screen, I do know that it is actually bad.

The movie for me was like a bad episode of the Jim Caviezel series, Person of Interest. The movie has the same theme, a guy that is called upon by someone higher up to help those who are in a jam, whether the caused it themselves or it fell on their lap. The difference here is that our guy Travis (Liam Neeson) is the FBI fixer who helps secret agents undercover when there are in such jams.

The movie was like an elongated 20-minute short film, the dialogues are poor, the fight scenes laughable and just hits the nail on the head that Liam Neeson is too old for this.

His movements were stiff, and the movie I think would have felt better in younger hands. The sad thing is will I have seen it if it wasn’t Liam Neeson on the cover? I guess that’s why he was cast.

To expatiate on the plot, Travis was asked to go fix an undercover agent (Crane) who seems to have gone off the books with his character. Crane went to see a reporter and tells her he has evidence on the FBI boss killing civilians. This information or meeting with the reporter is unknown as of yet, and Crane met Travis when he got arrested for beating up four officers. When Travis interrogates Crane after getting him out of jail, Crane seems bent that his boss, Robinson was killing civilians. He escapes from Travis and plans to take this evidence to the newspapers. When Robinson hears of this, he sends his men to silent Crane. Travis is not in the know of this as his mission was still to find Crane and bring him in to Robinson. When Travis finally meets up with Crane in one of the saddest excuses of a fight, Crane gets killed in front of Travis and almost got killed himself. He confronts Robinson and his life too was now in danger.

With a poor plot, over-exaggerated consequences, and a bad guy whose plan/motive seems to be so vague that the movie does not bother to fully elaborate, I feel this movie should have best been done with a lesser budget. If this was a B-movie and a direct-to-video stuff, then there will be less reasons for complaints. But with a $43 million budget and theatrical release which will include marketing, this movie is so disappointing, and you will be left to wonder where the $43 million went.

And can we just say, bad guys keeping evidence of their evil deeds in safes is one thing I am fed up of seeing.