Liam Neeson is back at it again with a new generic action movie.
There's nothing especially memorable or distinguishing about Honest Thief, but that doesn't mean it's not a perfectly acceptable action movie.
Neeson stars as Tom, a reformed bank robber who wants to turn himself in to the FBI after falling in love with Annie (Kate Walsh, The Perks of Being a Wallflower).
But things go awry when one of the agents assigned to check out his story decides to colour outside the lines.
Neeson plays the exact same role he does in every other action flick (Taken, Unknown, etc), but the cast around him stop the film from being terrible.
Walsh - who is criminally underused in film and has delivered great work in the likes of 13 Reasons Why and The Umbrella Academy - is great as Annie. The script doesn't give her a lot to work with and features some pretty lacklustre dialogue, but she gives it everything she's got and tries hard to build some chemistry with Neeson.
Back at the FBI, Aussie actor Jai Courtney (The Water Diviner) gets villainous as Agent Nivens, alongside the more morally indecisive Agent Hall (Anthony Ramos, A Star is Born).
Jeffrey Donovan - usually quite villainous himself - plays good guy Agent Meyers, and spends most of his time with a gorgeous fluffy dog named Tazzie (who, in a slight spoiler, makes it through the movie completely unharmed).
Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) rounds out the cast.
There's nothing inventive or ground-breaking about the action sequences, no big twists and no compelling motives, but everything rolls along exactly as expected.
Honest Thief is popcorn action that you can sit through for an hour and a half and leave your cinema feeling the same as you entered it. It won't disappoint because generic actioners don't engender high expectations.
If nothing else, Honest Thief will hopefully see the likes of Walsh and Ramos (who was fantastic in Hamilton and gets to appear alongside his co-star and relief partner Jasmine Cephas Jones in this film) in more leading roles.
Bonus props to Donovan for being the only member of the cast to commit to a Boston accent.