In The Land Of Saints And Sinners (2023) Dir: Robert Lorenz

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Directed by Robert Lorenz, this Netflix original crime thriller is one of those films that I've held a casual interest in watching for a little while. It hasn't set the world on fire since it arrived on Netflix, but I still felt like it had potential. Liam Neeson's late career action star resurgence has had its moments, that's for sure, so I was keeping my fingers crossed that I'd see something along those entertaining lines.

It's hard to make an ugly film when the chosen setting is Ireland, and it should therefore come as no surprise that this film boasted some stunning shots of the Irish scenery and settlements. The film didn't do anything particularly new or unique, but it did the fundamentals well enough. The soundtrack had some emotive elements, but wasn't all that memorable for the most part, unfortunately.

Coming into it, I thought the story sounded like it could be pretty intriguing, and, I will admit, I liked the opening scene of the film a lot. It was a very impactful entry point to the narrative. However, from there, the film sunk into a dull, predictable, and almighty slog. There were interesting moments, but they weren't nearly often enough. Some of the characters weren't remotely as endearing as it felt like they were supposed to be, which made it very hard to care about what was going on most of the time.

Liam Neeson gave a fairly standard display for what he's become known for in the last two decades, although I won't pretend like this was nearly as memorable of some of the peaks he's had in that time. There were some scenes where Neeson's acting pedigree really came through quite clearly, but there were equally a number of times where he just wasn't that convincing. I've definitely seen better from him.

Kerry Cordan's character was a little inconsistent, but her acting itself was fairly decent. She did a good job of showing the complexities of her character, particularly in the second half of the film. Her acting wasn't faultless, but it was certainly enough to make her at least somewhat compelling. The supporting cast had some adequate performances, albeit none that impressed too much. I thought that the likes of Ciarán Hinds, Jack Gleeson, Colm Meaney, and Sarah Greene, were the names most worth mentioning, on that front.

Overall, I thought this was a rather lethargic and predictable thriller, which could not capitalise on its own fairly intriguing, if not original, premise. Casting half of Ireland's biggest names wasn't enough to make this into an interesting film - it needed the narrative to match up to that promise, and said-narrative certainly did not. In the end, this looks to be another soon-to-be-forgotten Netflix original film that not many people will end up bothering to watch.