COLD WAR (THE ICE ROAD)

 

Oh Liam.

Liam, Liam, Liam - we need to talk.

Over the years in films like 'Lamb,' 'The Mission,' 'Sweet As You Are,' 'Michael Collins,' 'Five Minutes of Heaven,' 'Ordinary Love' and, of course, 'Schindler's List,' you have proven what a good actor you are.

So why do you persist in trying to be the Celtic Clint Eastwood?

Your record as an action hero has been patchy at best.

Is it not time that you go back to doing what you do best?

Liam's latest action escapade is Jonathan Hensleigh's thriller 'The Ice Road' about truckers undertaking a perilous journey to rescue trapped Canadian miners.

Streamed by Netflix in the US and Amazon Prime in the UK and Ireland, it is an unintentionally funny, chowder headed action movie with a terrible script penned by the director.

Hensleigh's movie begins with miners working underground who hit a methane pocket, causing an explosion to rip through the mine and trap 26 of them.

It transpires that the mine's methane sensors were not working but they manage to notify those above ground that they are still alive using Norse code 

However they only have 30 hours worth of breathable air.

An alert is put out for truck drivers to transport huge wellheads to Manitoba to help rescue those trapped below 

This is received by Laurence Fishburne's Jim Goldenrod who sets about putting the right crew together.

The reward for all this effort is a split of a juicy pot of $200,000 for underaking a perilous journey from Winnipeg on a road of ice.

Goldenrod identifies one talented driver Amber Midthunder's Native American activist Tantoo who he bails out of police custody where she has been detained for taking part in a protest.

She is the sister of one of the trapped miners and therefore needs little persuasion to join in.

Liam Neeson's Mike McCann and his brother, Marcus Thomas' Gurty also answer Goldenrod's clarion call.

Gurty, however, is an Iraq War veteran who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder and asphasia.

Picked on in his last job, he and Mike were fired after his brother punched a colleague for calling him a retard.

Gurty is also a talented mechanic and is able to demonstrate his particular set of skills during an audition for Goldenrod.

Soon the McCanns are signed up for the mission too.

With Benjamin Walker's mining company man, an actuary called Varnay also along for the ride, they set off in a convoy of three trucks towards Manitoba.

As the journey progresses, it soon becomes clear they are battling more than just the elements.

Their efforts to reach Manitoba are sabotaged and life is inevitably lost, with suspicions arising around who is responsible.

What follows is a movie that fancies itself as a 'Fast and Furious' style action adventure but which has all the depth of a peanut.

The dialogue is ear scrapingly bad and the plot is so dot to dot, you can predict it 100 miles off.

So while it toys with being a disaster movie, it turns into a substandard action movie that veers into the laughable.

Through it all, Neeson scowls and growls the way he normally he does these days in lame action movie after lame action movie. 

Weirdly his north Antrim accent often break through his attempts to sound American, while his so-called brother, Thomas' Gurty remains resolutely a Yank.

Thomas is reduced, however, to trotting out the tired old, condescending Hollywood handicapped genius routine that is long past its use by date.

His cut price Lenny to Neeson's George is designed to tug the heartstrings but actually thumps them.

Midthunder is saddled with the part of the feisty girl holding her own in a macho world a la Michelle Rodriguez in the 'Fast and Furious' franchise.

Fishburne does solid work as Goldenrod, dutifully crunching through the gears of a lumbering script.

Walker also does his best as the shifty corporate guy who might be the cuckoo in the nest.

What you end up is a poor imitation of the vastly overrated 'Fast and Furious' franchise and that's not good enough.

Liam, you are about to hit 70.

Please go back to real drama.

You really are too good for this nonsense.

('The Ice Road' was made available for streaming on Netflix in the US and Amazon Prime in the UK and Ireland on June 27, 2021)