Retribution Review: A Vehicle Built for Brisk Action, for Better and Worse

Nimród Antal’s Retribution revolves around a hard-nosed financier, Matt Turner (Liam Neeson), for whom phone calls translate into money. In the rare moments where he isn’t trying to talk a client into a juicy new investment, he’ll half-participate in a conversation with his wife, Heather (Embeth Davidtz), or bark orders at his children, Zack (Jack Champion) and Emily (Lilly Aspell). Given how recklessly we see Matt handling other people’s money and emotions, it’s no surprise when someone eventually comes around looking for payback.

And given that this is a Liam Neeson movie in the year 2023 with a title like Retribution, it’s no surprise that they do so by holding him hostage with the threat of explosion. The film opens with Matt begrudgingly agreeing to take the kiddos to school. During the drive, he receives a call and a mysterious voice informs him that there’s a bomb inside the car. The device will explode automatically if any of the passengers attempts to leave, and the mystery caller will detonate it remotely if they try to contact the police or if Matt fails to follow their instructions.

The premise naturally invites comparison to Speed, but the film more closely resembles Phone Booth. Just like in that action flick, our hero is stuck in a cramped space for the majority of the runtime, receiving instructions via telephone from an unknown antagonist. And just like Colin Farrell’s character in Phone Booth, Matt is quickly manipulated into acting in ways that make him look like the villain, meaning that he has both the real terrorist and the local police to deal with if he wants to make it to the end of the school day run with his family intact.

Unlike the heroes of Speed, Matt doesn’t have an entire police force to call on for support, and the bomb prevents him from pulling off high-octane stunts. It’s a compelling setup, narrowing the scope of things efficiently so that we always have a precise idea of the stakes and how his hand is being forced. Retribution doesn’t really have the smarts to make any of the problems he encounters or his solutions to them all that intriguing, but it does so at an enjoyably brisk pace.

Still, even as it adheres rigidly to a road map laid down by prior films, it manages to make a few wrong turns. The caller speaks to Matt using one of those voice changers that movie bad guys are so partial to, and this effectively dulls the performance of whoever is playing the person on the other end of the line, denying Retribution the sort of villainous thrills that Dennis Hopper and Kiefer Sutherland brought to Speed and Phone Booth, respectively. It’s clearly done so that the identity of Turner’s tormentor can be held back as a surprise for the big finale, but it ultimately isn’t a particularly interesting reveal and really isn’t worth the trade-off.

Retribution could have really benefited from at least a more dynamic baddie since the characters inside the car are so paper-thin that it’s a wonder they’re even able to keep the weight-sensitive bomb beneath them from exploding. The kids exist solely so Matt can worry about them blowing up, and for the most part this isn’t too much of a problem since Retribution is a vehicle built for brisk action rather than weighty emotions. But the Turner clan’s one-dimensionality leaves the film’s odd attempts at sentimentality feeling unearned.

For his part, Neeson brings to Retribution the same qualities that he’s brought to the films that have continued his late-career renaissance, even if they aren’t enough to fully carry this one to its destination. Once the villain has been unmasked, the final showdown between them and Turner is a snore. And without a compelling reason for us to care about the people inside the car—or a villain with a compelling reason of their own for wanting them to explode—a reasonably diverting journey never accelerates into an outright thrill-ride.