8 Films & 1 TV Show That Work Perfectly From Different Perspectives

2018's The Commuter was the third Jaume Collet-Serra directed film starring Liam Neeson, with all films finding our protagonist in almost identical situations. In each film Neeson's character must unwrap a convoluted conspiracy plot that he has become not only entangled in, but essentially blamed for. But where as the first two films in the collaboration, 2011's Unknown and 2014's Non Stop, were great popcorn fun with exciting finales, The Commuter just felt unengaging.

The major problem was that there were far too many subplots that went nowhere, with the fun premise, a man is asked by a stranger on a train to identify a specific commuter for a ton of cash, being pushed to the foreground. This is best exemplified by the storyline of Captain David Hawthorne, portrayed by legendary New Zealand actor Sam Neill.

Throughout the film there is clearly something untoward about Hawthorne, with the audience knowing Neill is somehow involved, but just unsure as to how. That is until the film's finale when it is shown that Hawthorne has nothing to do with the plot of the film, despite occupying a fair degree of screen time

The film works much better when viewing Neill's character as somehow the architect of the whole grisly scheme, even if we don't know exactly how. It makes the grand conspiracy plot work much better and allows one to enjoy Neill's nuanced performance far more knowing his character arc actually is fundamental to the plot, rather than just being non existent.