Ticket 2 Ride

Liam Neeson is at it again. A few years ago he starred in The Ice Road, which is loosely based on the classic French film, The Wages of Fear (1953). In Ice Road: Vengeance, Neeson plays trucker Mike McCann who is part of a crew driving an important component to save trapped workers in a diamond mine collapse. Ice Road: Vengeance has nothing to do with The Ice Road, just the character and Neeson carry forward to the new film. I saw The Ice Road, because I see all Liam Neeson films, but I can’t recall a thing about it.

Both Ice Road films were written and directed by Jonathan Hensleigh. In Vengeance, McCann is on his way to scatter his brother’s ashes on Mount Everest. Arriving in Nepal, McCann finds himself drawn into a battle between a family refusing to sell their land for construction of a large dam, and the corrupt industrialist who will stop at nothing, including murdering members of the landowner family to advance his project.

Most of the film takes place on an old, rickety sightseeing bus with McCann, his young, female guide, the landowner’s grandson, the cantankerous bus driver, and a UN representative and his daughter. The industrialist, his corrupt Nepali police, and a few hired assassins are in chase over the mountains and gorges. Think: Stagecoach (1939), the classic Western directed by John Ford and the soon to be major movie star, John Wayne. Vengeance follows Stagecoach’s storyline.

Principal photography took place in Victoria, Australia, which filled in for the mountainous geography of Nepal. Hensleigh is a competent director, even though both films have low Rotten Tomatoes scores, but will have plenty of life on streaming platforms.

Ice Road: Vengeance is built for worldwide streaming. It’s an action-thriller with a sympathetic and likable lead actor. Neeson can do these films in his sleep, and he has slept through a few of them. It wasn’t long ago that he said he would stop playing in these action films. That hasn’t been the case. He still looks good, moves well and plays characters younger than his actual age. Why stop?

I haven’t heard of the various companies with their names above the titles of his films, but I suspect it’s a group of small production houses with foreign investors backing his films. Nothing wrong with that. According to an industry trade press release, “financial assistance to the picture through their Location Incentive scheme and via the Victorian Screen Incentive and Regional Location Assistance Fund.”

Hensleigh began as a writer, scripting A Far Off Place, Jumanji, Die Hard With a Vengeance, The Saint, and Armageddon, before moving behind the camera for The Punisher and a few other films before the Ice Road films.

Ice Road: Vengeance is obviously a pretty standard chase and shoot-out film. It’s not a complicated story, and it has the minimum number of surprises while staying within the formula. Hensleigh puts together a better than average film, provided that you don’t require it to do more than expected. While Neeson is the star, it feels more like an ensemble film. The supporting cast is solid, and thankfully the villains don’t chew the scenery, although the final fight sequence goes on a bit long, these aren’t superheroes, keep it sort of realistic.

Ice Road: Vengeance is a decent film on a rainy day or if you are folding laundry.