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Post by wallsofjericho on Feb 17, 2019 3:21:07 GMT
I mean there are a few of his performances I have liked, Schindler's List being his best and I thought he was quite effective in Silence but I generally can never remember his character names in any of his action flicks minus Taken. Interested in hearing this boards thoughts on him
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Feb 17, 2019 3:56:16 GMT
He's a consistently good actor who has a knack for elevating poor material and playing internal conflict, but he doesn't have that many home run performances. There's Schindler's List, maybe Kinsey or Michael Collins for some, Taken as an newer action staple, and that's it? Plenty of other good, even really good, performances, like your mention of Silence, but it feels at least to me like he's left some of his talent on the table and can be capable of more. Or maybe I just think that because he has a really cool voice. Anyway, for some off-kilter performances of his, I like him quite a bit in Suspect and The Lego Movie, the former being a mute role and the latter a dual voiceover role.
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Post by stephen on Feb 17, 2019 3:57:03 GMT
He's a consistently good actor who has a knack for elevating poor material and playing internal conflict, but he doesn't have that many home run performances. There's Schindler's List, maybe Kinsey or Michael Collins for some, Taken as an newer action staple, and that's it? Plenty of other good, even really good, performances, like your mention of Silence, but it feels at least to me like he's left some of his talent on the table and can be capable of more. Or maybe I just think that because he has a really cool voice. Anyway, for some off-kilter performances of his, I like him quite a bit in Suspect and The Lego Movie, the former being a mute role and the latter a dual voiceover role. Um, excuse me, but where the fuck is The Grey? |
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Feb 17, 2019 4:26:17 GMT
He's a consistently good actor who has a knack for elevating poor material and playing internal conflict, but he doesn't have that many home run performances. There's Schindler's List, maybe Kinsey or Michael Collins for some, Taken as an newer action staple, and that's it? Plenty of other good, even really good, performances, like your mention of Silence, but it feels at least to me like he's left some of his talent on the table and can be capable of more. Or maybe I just think that because he has a really cool voice. Anyway, for some off-kilter performances of his, I like him quite a bit in Suspect and The Lego Movie, the former being a mute role and the latter a dual voiceover role. Um, excuse me, but where the fuck is The Grey? A dumb omission on my part, that's his second clear home run. One of those films that didn't get a fair shake due to its misleading marketing as "Liam Neeson fights wolves" instead of Carnahan's treatise on existentialism. |
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Post by Pavan on Feb 17, 2019 8:32:11 GMT
Really good actor and has great screen presence. Silence and The Grey were his best performances in recent times but this action star persona of him is becoming boring.
As Mike said, he has a great voice which i think is one of the best things about those Narnia movies.
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Post by jakesully on Feb 17, 2019 14:02:12 GMT
like Pavan said , he is a really good actor and has a very commanding screen presence about him .
Love him in pretty much everything (esp The Grey , S. List, Kingdom of Heaven , Rob Roy and Batman Begins) . My fav role though is actually his small but pivotal role in Gangs of New York as Priest Vallon . Hell, Scorsese could have made the entire film focused on the rivalry between the Priest & the Butcher if he wanted to.
Also , Neeson can be surprisingly funny too (his cameo in Ted 2 was the best thing about that shit sequel) . and I thought he was fun to watch as the leader of The A Team .
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 17, 2019 14:11:43 GMT
He generally is a good actor, but with his recent focus on action flicks (most of them which are not very good), you don't can really appreciate him any longer for versatility. And he also doesn't really add something to this roles. Most point out to The Grey and I'll give him that to an extent as well as a convincing turn in Taken, but I think that other actors would haven done much more with this role - which I think is also true for some other of his performances, which I all think are fine, but could have been better. For example the classic role of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables or Rob Roy. Neeson just never reached the heights where I say he soaked me totally into his role. Having said this I've always liked him. Of course his role in Schindlers List is the one that stands out. Aside from this my favorite performances of his are probably Gangs of New York, Kinsey and his different turn in Love Actually.
I just saw that Neeson is scheduled to play Chandler's Philip Marlowe, which huge Chandler-Fan that I am, find interesting and will be another role that holds as a benchmark, cause it's such a fascinating character. But honestly the footsteps of Bogie and Robert Mitchum in that role are so immense...
I could see Neeson make a fine turn, but he wouldn't have been my first choice.
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 17, 2019 14:46:26 GMT
The Irish rogue brawler poet of actors - that women want to sleep with and men want to be?
Quite tiresome, something of a joke as a type and a bit overrated as an actor.
Look, I do like him at times, he's been good a few times certainly - no argument there at all - but check his filmography after his wife died and look at that whoring out of himself where people make crazy exceptions for the very few he did that worked (The Grey obviously). Most of the time even stuff that worked is him just being in it (Buster Scruggs).
A whole lot of people made a whole lot of exceptions because those movies made money and his wife sadly passed away - and I say .........stop confusing those things with his acting. People are awfully quick to slag off say DeNiro (or whomever) for his later career - 60+ etc. - but it seems to me the difference between them is the heights DeNiro previously scaled vs. the heights that Neeson never came close to scaling. He's also a pathological nutcase in real life - he was nuts back to when he used to say he carried around the paperback of Les Miserables prior to getting the film role.
Right, he can sell that BS somewhere else. A hard drinking, poetic Irishman with a copy of Ulysses in one hand and something by O'Neill in his back pocket so he can play it adequately but he's not more than that. I don't want to say he's "really" overrated but people do not give his work the level of thought they should or would do with another actor really.
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Post by Viced on Feb 17, 2019 15:11:53 GMT
I like him much more in Charles Bronson mode over the last decade or so than the rest of his career.
His performance in Silence is probably the most disappointing of the decade. People crap on him for all the action movies, but those are much more his wheelhouse than anything else imo.
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Post by stabcaesar on Feb 17, 2019 15:17:55 GMT
He's a dilf.
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Post by stephen on Feb 17, 2019 17:21:20 GMT
Old Reliable is a pretty good nickname for him, and that is both a compliment and a detriment. He's rarely ever been out-and-out awful in anything (although he's certainly been miscast a fair bit), but he's probably one of the most predictable actors out there, just simply because he seems content to just do variations on a theme rather than plumbing new depths. I think he's got three legitimately powerful performances in his canon (Schindler's List, The Grey and his one-scene wonder in Gangs of New York, where he went toe-to-toe with DDL and made us want a feature-length film about their rivalry instead of what we got), and I think his forays into comedy with his ultra-serious gravity in Life's Too Short and Ted 2 are utterly riotous . . . but it just seems like Neeson scarcely seems to care about trying new things or carving out new niches for himself.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2019 18:28:49 GMT
His performance in Silence is probably the most disappointing of the decade. Agreed, especially because it's a role you can easily imagine other actors knocking out of the park. |
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Post by SeanJoyce on Feb 22, 2019 4:25:44 GMT
DDL did such a good job in Lincoln that people tend to forget that was Neeson's baby for the longest time before Spielberg went a different direction.
I wonder how he would have fared as Abe, and what the perceptions of him would be if he had smacked it out of the park as decisively as DDL did.
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Post by pupdurcs on Feb 22, 2019 4:49:38 GMT
DDL did such a good job in Lincoln that people tend to forget that was Neeson's baby for the longest time before Spielberg went a different direction. I wonder how he would have fared as Abe, and what the perceptions of him would be if he had smacked it out of the park as decisively as DDL did. I think under Spielberg, Neeson would probably had won the Oscar. Abe is an iconic, built-up part. More than half the job is achieved by the wardrobe and make-up department. With his tall, lanky physique, I feel and slightly aysymmertical features, I think Neeson could have been made to look even more of a picture portrait version of Lincoln than even DDL. Shame Neeson never got the chance. DDL was indeed very good, but I feel every quality Neeson brings to fore as a screen actor probably would have made him the most ideal Lincoln |
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