If Liam Neeson is aging like a fine whiskey, In the Land of Saints and Sinners proves it’s the kind you keep hidden under the bar for special nights — not the rotgut he’s been chasing down action movies with since Taken 3. In this broody Irish shoot-’em-up, Neeson doesn’t just beat up bad guys. He wrestles with demons, guilt, and the general misery of living in a 1970s coastal village where every pub has more secrets than Guinness on tap. It’s an authentic, weather-beaten, beautifully shot, occasionally absurd thriller — and like Neeson himself, it carries its battered gravitas with a wink and a growl.
A Movie Made of Sleet, Whiskey, and Regret
Director Robert Lorenz (an American, bless his Midwestern heart) clearly decided that if he was going to make an Irish thriller, it was going to bleed green from every frame. No Hollywood leprechauns or tin whistles here: Lorenz went full native, hiring an all-Irish cast and crew, filming in the craggy wilds of Donegal, and probably dodging rainclouds bigger than Manhattan.
The script — penned by Mark Michael McNally and Terry Loane, with a spit-and-polish by Matthew Feitshans — roots itself in 1974’s Troubles, a setting that makes today’s political tensions look like a PTA bake sale. There’s real ambition here: Lorenz tries to weave a mythic, wounded Ireland into a western-style redemption story. Think The Quiet Man by way of Unforgiven, but with less kissing and more shotguns.
Of course, no amount of misty cliffs or IRA bombers could stop Netflix from poking its greedy nose in. The streamer grabbed UK and Irish distribution rights faster than Finbar can load his soggy shotgun shells. The result? A movie that smells like peat smoke and dynamite… delivered straight to your living room with the click of a remote.
Neeson, Condon, Gleeson — and No, This Is Not the Set of a Law Firm
Casting here is a small miracle. Liam Neeson delivers another variation on his signature role — Sad Man With a Special Set of Skills — but this time he adds real weariness, a feeling that every kill weighs an ounce heavier than the last.
Kerry Condon, fresh off stealing The Banshees of Inisherin, plays the fanatical bomber Doireann with ice in her veins and rage in her marrow — a performance that’s sharper than a Galway gale. And then there’s Jack Gleeson, unrecognizable from his Joffrey days, oozing sleaze like a bar towel left in the sun. Honestly, it’s good to see him being evil without needing a crown or a crossbow.
The plot clicks along with the grim inevitability of an Irish funeral procession: bodies fall, secrets spill, and just when you think Neeson’s character has finally traded in his shotgun for a quiet pint, someone drags him back in. Add in Colm Meaney doing his best “crooked but charming mob boss” act and Ciarán Hinds showing up as a Garda who might be the only honest man left in Ireland, and you’ve got a stew so Irish you could serve it with a side of brown bread.
A Stiff Breeze of Praise, and a Light Drizzle of Complaints
Critics, as usual, lined up like barflies to toss their pennies into the pint glass. Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 83% nod of approval, calling it “well-written and classically constructed.” Translation: they liked it, but weren’t about to propose marriage. Metacritic, meanwhile, threw a 60/100 at it — the equivalent of a shrug and a muttered “sure, why not?”
The Belfast Telegraph called it “mixed,” Empire gave it three polite stars, and The Hollywood Reporter tried (unsuccessfully) to swat it away with a sigh about “overripeness.” Funny — if anything, this movie is undercooked compared to the over-boiled schlock Neeson’s been trapped in since The Commuter.
Viewers, however, seem to get it. This is not a movie that’s trying to reinvent cinema. It’s a battered ballad about second chances, set against a land where the hills themselves probably carry grudges. It’s old-fashioned, brutal, mournful — and weirdly comforting. Like a sad Irish drinking song you can’t stop humming.
Come for the Shootouts, Stay for the Soul
In the Land of Saints and Sinners doesn’t blow the doors off the genre, but it does something rarer: it earns your respect. It’s an action movie that remembers to have a heart (even if that heart has a few bullet holes). Liam Neeson could probably make three of these a year and still seem credible — but here, thanks to Lorenz’s insistence on real Irish grit and a cast that understands what’s at stake, you get something more: a well-weathered fable of violence, memory, and blood on the moors.
It’s not perfect. But damn if it doesn’t leave a mark.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5 Stars)
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