3 Short Paragraphs: The Marksman

 2021, Robert Lorenz (Trouble with the Curve) -- download

Pretty much all my recent posts about Liam Neeson movies bring up that he is being relegated to the aging action star mould. Or I should be clearer, all the Liam Neeson movies that I watch. But this is the first one where it is obvious that his age has caught up with him. There is no denying Neeson's Jim is past his prime. He's a widowed rancher, ex-marine in Texas, right on the border, losing his ranch to the bank and dealing constantly with Mexican illegals crossing his land. In the land of Right vs Left, Jim is likely a Republican, but not the amoral image the internet creates of them. When he is presented with a situation where an illegal and her son need his assistance, he provides it.

This is an odd movie. It positions itself from the common American trope, in that Good Men stand up and do what is right. The same trope usually involves violence. The movie is called The Marksman but that has so little to bear on the movie. Sure, Jim is skilled with a rifle, but that's it. Possibly there is a statement that only an armed American can make a difference, but I doubt it. But the strangeness comes in the underlying current of the movie, wherein we see the coming-to-America viewpoint from Mexicans who don't really want to be going there. The boy and his mother cross the border because their life is in danger. The cartel thugs follow them. They are the illegals we are presented with, but neither actually want to be in America. Hard choices forced them across the border.

The boy and his mother cross the border because her brother ran afoul of a cartel. She is killed at the border and begs Jim to take the boy to his family in Chicago. Jim tries to do what the law expects of him, but runs into walls of corruption and indifference. The cartel follows them, as Jim abandons the ranch he was trying to save from the bank and guides the boy to his family. Jim's at the end of his life, the boy is just beginning. Its a morose movie where we don't get a beautiful picture of American through the eyes of an illegal, but tainted views from all sides. I saw the boy not seeing much difference between where he had been raised and the rural views of America, meanwhile the cartel men pondered the decadence of the strip malls and free-flowing money they would likely never have access to, without resorting to the violence that brought them to America. Odd movie, that while the underlying current was as above, most of it was just standard, boring chase fare.