BLACKLIGHT (2022)

BLACKLIGHT (2022)

Tagline: They're gonna need more men

(Action, Thriller, I Heard A Rumor) [PG-13]

Your just bullets in his chamber

In this one FBI operative Travis Block decides he wants to start getting closer to his daughter and granddaughter after a demanding career in protecting FBI agents who find themselves in dire straights or turning against the organization. After Block is denied a way out he takes an assignment to help turn agent Dusty Crane around, when it becomes more and more clear the agency is involved in something more nefarious than he ever imagined. 

First off, the tagline for this kind of makes it sound like we are going to get a full-blown JOHN WICK type movie here. That isn’t how this goes down at all. Most of the story revolved around Travis Block just trying to overcome obsessive impulsive disorder and reporter Mira Jones trying to put out a story that agent Dusty is trying to tell. We do have some shoot-outs and car chases, but a lot of this movie is more methodical storytelling than I expected. 

This is the 3rd Liam Neeson-centered movie that I have reviewed in the past few years and I really don’t see Neeson slowing down. He has started to take on these pretty Bruce Willis-ish action roles but on a safer level with better scripts. While BLACKLIGHT is not going to blow minds (it plays out more like an action-packed episode of the TV show “Blacklist”) it is an interesting little flick that kind of asks the questions of accountability that I think are important. I also kind of wonder if some of the bad reviews are not really related to how rough the movie is, but rather how close to the cuff it is about how shady some organizations in our own government can get. You cannot, and should not, trust the government for “anything”, which is the central message of hundreds of movies and there is damn good reason for that.

Score wise this one is pretty good and I really liked the soundtrack overall.  I also liked the pacing for the most part in the first and third acts. The middle of the movie kind of gets muddled and feels lost. Acting wise it was nice to see Emmy Raver-Lampman who was really good as Mira Jones. If you don’t know who she is, she also plays Allison on “The Umbrella Academy”. Taylor John Smith gets minimal screen time as Dusty Crane but is also solid. Travis Block’s character is also given a bit of a personal story and Gabriella Sengos does a solid job as his granddaughter. This is the only movie Gabriella has been in, but the role really gives this thing that extra touch of heart, that helps keep it from just feeling super one-dimensional. 

You do probably have to enjoy these middle-of-the-road “the government sucks” kind of movies to get much out of this one, but I enjoyed it. Neeson has kind of won me back over after a few rocky roles in the early 2000s.

BLACKLIGHT is a 4 out of 7 but you are going to have to allow yourself to not approach this not expecting over the top full blown gigantic budget production. Then layer those expectations with a bit of “I don’t need this to be super realistic.”

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF ZERO GRAVITY MANAGEMENT AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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