A Walk among the Tombstones

Liam Neeson resumes his craggy hero guise in writer/director Scott Frank's moody, misjudged thriller based on Lawrence Block's crime novel, one of a series featuring world-weary gumshoe Matt Scudder. Neeson (looking more fed up and delivering less conviction than ever) plays the former police officer with a chequered, alcoholic past who becomes a reluctant player in a dangerous game as a favour to a fellow addict (Boyd Holbrook). Investigating the abduction and murder of the wife of a wealthy drug dealer (a shifty Dan Stevens), Neeson finds out that she wasn't the first to die and she won't be the last. Frank crafts a grim world where the female characters are portrayed as victims, and the violence against them is all the more discomforting for being so insensitively handled. It's a film that's wearyingly unoriginal, save in its slapping together of disparate elements: Neeson partners with a homeless teen (Brian "Astro" Bradley) to odd, unconvincing effect, and the preposterously pulpy dialogue is likely to raise titters. A fair amount of unintentional amusement aside, there's little here to enjoy.