Run All Night (2015) Full Movie

Run All Night (2015) Full Movie

Mobster and hit man Jimmy Conlon has one night to figure out where his loyalties lie: with his estranged son, Mike, whose life is in danger, or his longtime best friend, mob boss Shawn Maguire, who wants Mike to pay for the death of his own son.


Director  : Jaume Collet-Serra
Writer     : Brad Ingelsby
Stars        : Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, Joel Kinnaman

Storyline

Professional Brooklyn hitman Jimmy Conlon is more commonly known as THE GRAVEDIGGER. Jimmy was a mob hit-man, who was best friends with his boss Sean Maguire. But when Jimmy's son, Michael, is marked for death by the mob, Jimmy must go up against Sean to protect Michael at all costs. Together, he and Michael must avoid corrupt cops,
contract killers and the mob to survive the night.

Reviews  

Gangster movies have a long and distinguished history in cinema. A few of them are regarded by many movie fans as some of the best movies ever made. It's a genre that never dies. Even since before movies were in color, every few years a new one comes out and the vast majority of them work well. The drama and danger of the life their characters lead means that it's not hard to make a good film of this kind, but making a truly great one takes an unusual amount of skill, hard work, inspiration and a synergy of disparate elements that make the finished product greater than the sum of its parts. While watching bad people do bad things on the screen, the audience still has to have someone or something to root for. The moviegoer has to be drawn in to a film full of scenes designed to repulse. The filmmakers also need a solid story that includes relatable universal themes and life lessons, plus quality actors to "sell" all that to the audience. "Run All Night" (R, 1:54) has all that going for it and then some. This isn't just a "great" gangster film; it's the best gangster film since "Goodfellas".

Liam Neeson plays Jimmy Conlon, a retired hit man who had a particular set of skills that he used over a long career, but he has been gutted by the life he chose for himself and is now a drunk who is broke and estranged from his family. Jimmy Conlon is a combination of Neeson's characters in "Non-Stop" and "Taken", but his skills seem more common than in the latter and he's even more vulnerable than in the former. This is Neeson's most powerful and affecting performance since "Schindler's List". (After this movie, I'm even willing to forgive him for "Taken 3"!) Fortunately for the film and for us as movie fans, Neeson shares the screen with another highly respected long-time actor who is also at the top of his game. Ed Harris plays Jimmy's longtime employer and life-long best friend, Shawn Maguire, a former crime boss who is now a legitimate businessman, but one who still knows how to get his hands dirty when he feels that he needs to.

These two men become deadly adversaries when Jimmy is forced to shoot Shawn's son, Danny (Boyd Holbrook) in order to keep Danny from shooting Jimmy's son, Mike (Joel Kinnaman). Mike is a family man (two kids and another one on the way) who drives a limo. One night he is hired by two Armenian gangsters to take them to "visit" Danny and discuss a business deal gone bad. When Mike sees Danny shoot one of the Armenians, Mike gets away but Danny goes looking for him. Jimmy gets tipped off to what's going on and gets to his son just in time to stop Danny from killing Mike. Justifiable homicide, you might think, but Shawn doesn't see it that way. Even though both Shawn and Jimmy had strained relationships with their sons (Danny being an irresponsible loser and Mike blaming his father for leaving the family when Mark was young), blood is thicker than water. Old friends suddenly become enemies as Shawn and Jimmy go to war over the fact that Danny is dead and Mark is still alive. Whoever is still capable of running at the end of the night… wins.

"Run All Night" has that great synergy of elements that I mentioned earlier. Neeson and Harris are very well cast as friends-turned-enemies and each brings his A-game to his role. Kinnaman also offers up an extremely strong performance as an angry and brooding husband, father and son, who loves his family, yet puts them in danger and hates his father, but has to trust him to survive. Add to that group the rapper Common as an intense and deadly hit man and Vincent D'Onofrio as a cop (doing more than just mimicking his old "Law and Order" character) who was never able to put Jimmy away for any of his hits, and what you have is an extraordinary cast.

The script takes the time for some excellent character development, but instead of making the movie drag, in the hands of this talented group of actors, the film pulls you in from the very beginning and never lets go. Actually, the movie grabs your attention in the opening scene when you see Jimmy bloodied and lying on the forest floor while we hear his inner monologue reflecting on the burden of a lifetime of regrets. The shot is from above and leaves you wondering if that scene was a dream or if it's foreshadowing the end of the movie. And if it's the latter, you wonder how he got there, whether he's going to live and if he accomplished his goal of keeping his son safe. In fact, the movie is shot and edited very creatively and the score is simply perfect. Whether it's the synergy of filmmakers from different nations (including an American star and an Irish star, a Spanish director and a German cinematographer) or just a group of unusually talented people working together on the same project at the same time, the movie they've created is, so far, the best of 2015 and I wouldn't be surprised if it's remembered as one of the best gangster movies of all time.