Is Liam Neeson shortchanging his talent?

And then Liam Neeson was in Taken.

It was quite a departure. Over the years he’s played folk heroes, comic book villains, magic lions, sexual explorers, good and bad policemen, and exaggerated versions of himself. There were roles with overlap (he wasn't exactly a stranger to an action sequence), but Bryan Mills was still something of a surprise.

His recent commitment to action films has, though, given him a reputation. Mark Kermode, negatively reviewing Run All Night, contrasted him with Jason Statham and lamented his lack of meatier roles such as Alfred Kinsey or Oskar Schindler. When Neeson’s involvement with Narco Sub was announced on this site, the headline ran "Liam Neeson signs up for another action thriller."

It’s possible that a few readers mentally added the words "Oh god" to the start of that sentence. Perhaps they're just sad that Taken 3 happened and the Neuromancer adaptation didn't, but there's a question being asked in the wake of his recent film choices: Is Liam Neeson squandering his talent on these movies?

Apart from Run All Night, Neeson’s action thrillers have found an audience, even if the quality has varied occasionally (generally Den Of Geek seems to give his action films three stars, Taken movies aside). Perhaps that’s part of the problem: something that passes the time for one audience feels like a waste of Neeson’s talents to another.
 
That’s an important difference between Liam Neeson and Jason The Statham. The Stath fits perfectly into the niche he’s carved for himself (he’d fit in without being liberally coated in grease, but still, if that does happen we’re not complaining), and knows how good an actor he is. Statham stretches himself in small ways, sure, but he’s never going to play Alfred Kinsey.

He’s also a more versatile action hero than Neeson, who’s never going to fight like a dancer but instead has a talent for improvised weapons, scripted weapons, and ugly close-in fights. Statham can do this too, but Neeson couldn’t – I suspect - perform the bus fight sequence from The Transporter.

However, it’s worth noting that Neeson hasn't only been making action films (you'd have to go back to 2011's Gnomeo And Juliet for Statham's last film outside the genre, although you could put in a case for Hummingbird). However, in the past year Neeson has had three films out – Taken 3, A Walk Among theTombstones, and Run All Night – and they’re all of a certain type, films that allow Neeson to play his action persona. You know the ones: a dark past, problems strewn through his life in three act units, wearing his melancholy like a cape and so haunted that it’s occasionally uncomfortable to watch. Even in something as knowingly silly as Non-Stop he’s playing that type.

Statham also has a reputation for a certain kind of character. The differences are that Statham is better at slight variations in his roles, and that Neeson definitely has a wider range but his action persona – while initially effective - seems to be limited. It’s like watching Prince cover Oasis.

So, when it’s announced that Neeson is doing another action film there’s an image of it already forming in your mind: a muted colour palette, enclosed spaces and intense grappling. Perhaps a Downton Abbey actor trying to break away into different roles (although anyone who says they don't want to see Neeson and Hugh Bonneville taking down a drugs cartel is lying). That’s Neeson's reputation now, and it’s one that led to the underrated The Grey being misrepresented in its marketing, but it's not entirely deserved.

Looking at his choices since Taken, the other genre that leaps out is comedy. After his initial (and successful) foray in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s Life’s Too Short, it became clear that Neeson has the ability to be non-more serious in the face of the utterly ridiculous (indeed, that’s what helped make Non-Stop work). The forthcoming Entourage will doubtless feature Neeson as a version of himself, and after appearing in Family Guy and A Million Ways To Die In The West he’ll also be in Ted 2, so he’s clearly got a thing for divisive comedians.

He’s made a few uncredited cameos ranging from Anchorman to BBC 2 sitcoms, and played several of the more memorable characters in The LEGO Movie. Since Life’s Too Short in 2011, Neeson’s played six action leads but been part of six comedy ensembles. He's also got a mean Christopher Nolan impression in his repertoire, should that ever become necessary.

After Entourage and Ted 2 it’s worth noting that Neeson is playing the Monster in an adaptation of Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd’s book A Monster Calls, from TheOrphanage, The Impossible, and Penny Dreadful director J.A. Bayona, and is currently filming Silence with Martin Scorsese. Plus he gets to blow shit up and make people laugh more than he used to, so he’s not exactly slumming it is he?

There’s nothing intrinsically bad about Liam Neeson: Action Hero, but there’s the law of diminishing returns to consider, the fact that he could stand to vary his action roles a bit more. He seems to enjoy doing them, so it’d be churlish to deny him that. It's true though that the more he repeats the type of character mentioned above, the more this false representation of him builds.

Actors get labelled, that much is obvious. Jamie Bell is still referred to as Billy Elliott as if the last 15 years hasn’t happened. Neeson’s role in Taken has had a similar effect, overshadowing what has been a reasonably mixed and eclectic period in the actor’s career. The ‘I will find you…’ speech may well be what people remember Liam Neeson for, to the point where his reputation obscures the rest of his work, but hopefully not to the point where it prevents him from doing other things.