The Commuter Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

3. The Unexpected Social Commentary

Perhaps the most surprising element of The Commuter isn't any one of its plot twists, but rather the incisive - if comically blatant - social commentary.

Neeson's MacCauley is a man doing the daily commuting grind in order to provide for his family after he lost his pension and investments in the Great Recession, and he verbally calls out the bankers who profited off the crisis several times throughout the film.

This is best embodied by one of the train's passengers, an obnoxious stock market trader named Vince (Shazad Latif), to whom Neeson literally says at one point, "From the American middle-class, f*** you!"

There are countless other loaded nods to middle-class ennui throughout the film, lending it a distinctly different flavour than Neeson's other recent thrillers. It's not particularly clever or deep, but at least it is concerning itself with something other than exploding trains and people getting punched in the face.