Ruhet in Frieden – A Walk Among The Tombstones

Eine klassische Rolle für Liam Neeson. Manchmal gebe ich mir Mühe und rechne nach, wie viele Male er einen zerrissenen Einzelgänger, Alkoholiker und (ehemaligen) Polizisten gespielt hat. Egal, er gefällt mir immer. Dieser Film ist aber recht spezifisch, er hat eine eigenwillige Atmosphäre, und ich würde ihn sogar als modernen Film noir bezeichnen. Trotzdem sehe ich das größte Problem im holprigen Drehbuch, es ist unnötig lang und lässt die richtige Ladung vermissen. Lupenreine drei Sterne, was für Liam wohl zu wenig ist. (27.03.2015)

Erwarten Sie keinen nächsten Action-Neeson-Film. Die einzige Actionszene gibt es gleich am Anfang. Mit seinem Geist ähnelt er Schumachers 8MM - Acht Millimeter. Er hat aber Angst, in die Dunkelheit zu tauchen und aufs Pedal zu treten. Und aus unbegreiflichen Gründen redet er die Aura der Hauptschufte, die eigentlich todesfinster sein sollte, klein. Das Philosophieren über die Schuld und die Erlösung funktioniert im Film auch nicht besonders – in einer der Szenen am Ende, die dadurch originell ergänzt werden soll, ist es wie ein Schlag ins Gesicht. Neeson ist OK, aber der Beste ist hier Ólaffson, obwohl er eine kleinere Rolle hat (der war übrigens auch in Das erstaunliche Leben des Walter Mitty der Beste). [gesehen in Cinemark 18, Howard Hughes Promenade, LA] (20.09.2014)

A perfect, old school detective movie with a precise Neeson, perverted kidnappers and a cold, sodden atmosphere. These non-digital guy’s movies are few and far between and I’m glad that Scott Frank was able to resurrect this genre even in today’s world. A gloomy mood at the end of the millennium, full of junkies and cut-up whores, an ingenious story from the pen of Lawrence Block, all spiced with the crackly, hoarse, Irish telephone voice of a former drunk? I want a sequel! (31.10.2014)

Liam Neeson again plays a first-class ass-kicker, but unlike Bill Marks, his character has overcome alcoholism (emphasised here more than in the book) and, unlike Bryan Mills, he makes more room for psychology and diplomacy. For a viewer wanting another furious action spectacle, it may even seem that Oskar Schindler will talk the violent psychopaths to death. Personally, I welcomed the consistency of the hard-boiled stylisation, even though it involves reducing women to the status of passive victims. After brutal sexual crimes have been perpetrated against them, the men can avenge them and, in a certain sense, thus redeem themselves (the motif of redemption is quite forcefully pushed into the foreground in the climax, when we have to listen to all twelve steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous programme). Women’s suffering serves only as a pretext for heroic deeds and the moral purification of flawed men. The only relatively active female character from the book (Scudder’s girlfriend, Elaine) was cut out of the film in the interest of better narrative flow. Of course, classic noir films weren’t any more considerate in their handling of female characters, but wouldn’t it have been enough to emulate the classics only at the style level? With its longer, mostly static shots and claustrophobic compositions together with muted colours and a gloomy soundtrack, that style elicits the need to escape into another, more colourful and kinder world. However, the image of a corrupt society with twisted values is taken to such an extreme that the film’s most appealing scenes are the perverted fantasies of serial killers (we see the first one in the opening credits). Such a film naturally cannot have a happy ending, though the last scene may at first give the impression that it will. However, in the context of the immediately preceding events, which most radically deviate from the book (apparently because of the more active role given to Scudder, whose character is otherwise paradoxically based on the passive acceptance of violence), the “superhero” aspect mainly raises concerns about whether there is a way out of the endless cycle of violence that only inspires more such behaviour. 75% (30.10.2014)

Not only is this film not the peak of the genre but it is, in fact, quite a ways away. The culprit is the script, which cooks from proven but old and worn ingredients and the worst thing is that it doesn't work with mystery. The evildoers are known to the viewer, and there is simply no tension from their revelation. Scott Frank was probably supposed to replace it with atmosphere, but he didn't have the strength for it. A Walk Among the Tombstones is not an atmospheric film, and the comparison to Schumacher's 8MM is simply completely wrong. If Frank succeeds in building tension, it is thanks to the use of proven genre clichés, which any movie fan will consider somewhat overused. Another objection I have is (it is, of course, only my problem) that the most feared hunter of organized crime in retirement alias Liam Neeson slightly disgusted me with his acting in the various derivatives of Taken, so I did not perceive his experienced acting as a contribution. However, the film would still be good enough for a genre average and 3 stars, but there is also the anemic black boy, who, of course, was abandoned by his mother and found meaning in life through collaboration with the main protagonist. I am particularly sensitive to this trick, and the film loses one star because of it. I would only react worse to a blond blue-eyed girl suffering from leukemia, whom our brave detective platonically falls in love with. Overall impression: 40%. (28.09.2016)