The Marksman is a rote and generic story that is barely above the level of a retro straight-to-video release.

At this point, Liam Neeson has used his particular set of skills as an action hero so often that they’re no longer noteworthy. Neeson’s latest foray into thriller territory, The Marksman, is a rote and generic story that is barely above the level of a retro straight-to-video release.

Neeson’s reliably strong performance is the only thing that makes The Marksman stand out, and even that has so many familiar elements from previous Neeson thrillers that it’s not much to go on.

Neeson stars as Jim Hanson, an Arizona rancher and military veteran who just wants to live a quiet life raising cattle and drinking away his sorrow over his dead wife. He patrols the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to his property, calling in any undocumented border crossers (whom he calls “IAs,” for “illegal aliens,” presumably).

He flies a U.S. flag atop a tall flagpole in front of his house, and in one particularly ludicrous shot, he’s literally draped in the American flag as he takes it down from its perch. But despite the obvious conservative trappings, Jim isn’t presented as a bigot or xenophobe, and he gives water and medical attention to the migrants before reporting them to the authorities.

 

Jim’s moral compass is activated by a young Mexican boy and his mother fleeing across the border as they’re chased by drug cartel enforcers.

 

At first, Jim dutifully reports them to the Border Patrol, but when the gangsters start shooting, Jim fires back (he is, of course, a marksman), and with the woman dying in his arms, he promises to protect her son Miguel (Jacob Perez).

Although he initially hands Miguel over to his stepdaughter Sarah (Katheryn Winnick), who’s a local Border Patrol agent, Jim quickly has a change of heart. Jim breaks the kid out of holding and heads for Chicago, to reunite Miguel with his family members, per his mother’s dying wishes.

Meanwhile, the cartel goons are on Jim’s trail, led by the sadistic Maurico (Juan Pablo Raba), whose brother Jim killed in the initial confrontation at the border.

The bad guys are interchangeable Mexican thugs who could’ve been lifted directly out of a ’90s Steven Seagal movie, and there’s virtually no effort to give them any meaningful motivation.

They’re after Miguel and his mother because Miguel’s uncle stole some cartel money, but the reason is largely irrelevant. Raba does what he can to make Maurico scary and intense, but there’s barely a character for him to play, and the lack of a strong villain keeps the suspense to a minimum.

 

The Marksman is also fairly low on action, and following the shootout at the border, the entire middle section is about the crotchety Jim bonding with the petulant Miguel, who conveniently speaks perfect, unaccented English. Neeson’s typical half-hearted American accent (he should never attempt to say “y’all”) is ill-suited to a character who would be a perfect fit for someone like Kevin Costner.

The character occasionally seems like a misguided conservative fantasy of a “good guy with a gun,” especially during a laughable scene in which Jim convinces a gun-store owner to forgo a background check on him. “So long as it’s for the right reasons,” the guy says, handing this complete stranger multiple deadly weapons.

Of course, Jim does everything for the right reasons, and Neeson brings a little bit of soulfulness to this man who’s full of regret at the end of his life and feels out of touch with modern society (he doesn’t bother with newfangled things like cell phones).

The relationship between Jim and Sarah is as underdeveloped as everything else in the movie, but they share one tender moment before the action begins that suggests a more affecting dynamic.

That’s more than the filmmakers give to Jim and Miguel, who never feel like more than reluctant road-trip companions.

Director and co-writer Robert Lorenz previously directed the sleepy 2012 Clint Eastwood drama Trouble With the Curve, and The Marksman has a similar lack of urgency, despite all its gunplay.

The production values are also remarkably low for a major release, and the New Mexico and Ohio locations all blend together, making it feel like the characters’ cross-country road trip is just covering the same stretch of highway over and over.

 

Neeson’s last thriller, Honest Thief, was released just a few months ago, and while that one also felt rote and uninspired at times, at least it gave Neeson more of an interesting character to play and provided him with some worthy adversaries and allies.

There are only so many variations on the lone warrior with an unshakable moral code that Neeson can play, and The Marksman adds virtually nothing to that template.

If he’s going to continue down this late-career path as an action hero, Neeson deserves better material and better collaborators. His particular set of skills is worth more than this.

Starring Liam Neeson, Jacob Perez, Katheryn Winnick, Juan Pablo Raba and Teresa Ruiz, The Marksman opens Friday, Jan. 15 in theaters nationwide.