Absolution Review: Probing Study of Aging Gangster

Liam Neeson stars in the melancholic Absolution, as an ill gangster trying to find redemption for the violence of his life.

A world built on such a shaky foundation can only stand for so long, and with the Thug’s advancing age – Neeson turned 72 in June – comes the ability to see the cracks. How do you handle the knowledge of the trauma and violence that you have inflicted on countless others? How can you make amends for the unforgivable? What do you do with all of your regret? Absolution examines these aforementioned questions with astute psychological intelligence and an elegiac, wintry sense of doom. 

While Neeson has played sensitive and reserved types in movies such as Silence (2015) or Ordinary Love (2019), his imposing physical build and penetrating eyes give him a dangerous and threatening power on screen. He has the energy of a man who could break your nose in a bar fight just as easily as quote Dylan Thomas in a bar fight.. Over the course of his career, that mix of poet and boxer that runs through Neeson has been put to good use and he has carved out a niche for himself as an action star in movies such as Non-Stop (2014), The Commuter (2017) and the Taken Franchise.

He steps onto the screen in Absolution wearing the weight of those action movies. Due to Neeson’s understated command as an actor and the history that audience members have with him, it takes very little time for Absolution to establish the life that Thug has led. The toll of violence is written in the deep crags of Neeson’s face and the hulking stoop of his body. 

Thug has spent the last thirty years as a low-level runner and enforcer for Boston gangster Conner (Ron Perlman, of Hellboy). He grew up with an abusive father on the wrong side of the tracks and showed promise as a boxer before becoming involved with organized crime. One day, while picking up a shipment of Oxycodone from the doctors, Thug asks about memory problems that he has been having, trouble remembering names and addresses. He is diagnosed with an advanced case of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated concussions and blows to the head, with only a few short years before he’s incapacitated. 

Thug probably expected to die in a dark alley years before, and facing the prospect of the slow decline of his humanity forces him to take stock of it for probably the first time, finding only regret. He decides to reach out to his daughter Daisy (Frankie Shaw), estranged for many years due to his alcoholism and neglect, and hopes to get to know his grandson Dre (Terrence Pulliam). At the same time, he is trying to get out of the underworld with some dignity, and a brief encounter with a human trafficking ring may provide the opportunity for something greater. Thug’s impossible search for redemption forms the thrust of the movie. 

Hans Petter Molland (of Cold Pursuit and Zero Kelvin) directs with a grizzled sensitivity. The movie sympathizes with and understands Thug but never excuses his mistakes. It understands that there are some things that cannot be atoned for. When Daisy refuses to let him inside of her house the movie is on her side. The action sequences are taut and thrilling, but most of all, they are just plain sad; sad that such violence occurs in the world. The sky is uniformly a melancholy gray and the actors deliver their lines in a hushed, funereal tone, casting a sorrowful tone even the lightest of scenes in Absolution. 

In a recent interview with People Magazine, Neeson announced plans for retirement from action movies. “It has to stop at some point,” he said. If that is true and retirement is imminent, then I could think of no better way to put a cap on Neeson’s action movie career than Absolution. It feels like a farewell. While watching, I was reminded of John Wayne in The Shootist and Clint Eastwood in The Unforgiven; all three are ruminations on the particular actor’s previous movies and the violence that they wrought within them. In Absolution, Liam Neeson shoots the bad guys, but it’s the fear in his eyes, the way that his hands shake afterwards that makes the movie stand out from the crowd.

Absolution was released in US theaters on November 1, 2024 and is now available to watch on digital and on demand. In the UK, the film will be on Sky Cinema from November 30.