DRIVEN MAD (RETRIBUTION)

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Liam Neeson really ought to stay out of movies set in major cities.

And while we're at it, he should also avoid films that involve transportation.

Yet here he is again in Berlin driving a SUV with a bomb under the driver's seat.

The last time he was in the German capital was in 2011 for Jaume Collet Serra's decent thriller 'Unknown' with Aidan Quinn, Diane Kruger, January Jones, Bruno Ganz and Frank Langella.

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Neeson also starred in Serra's 2014 airplane thriller 'Non Stop' alongside Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy and Michelle Dockery as an alcoholic Federal Air Marshall terrorised on a flight from New York to London by texts warning him a passenger would be killed every 20 minutes.

And if that wasn't enough, he appeared for the director in 2018's 'The Commuter' in which he was joined by Vera Farmiga, Florence Pugh and Sam Neill in a story about a man drawn into a murder conspiracy on a morning train heading to Grand Central Station from the New York suburbs.

Serra is not on directorial duties, however, for this latest transportation adventure - 'Retribution'.

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That dubious honour falls to Hungarian American Nimrod Antal who is probably best known for making 'Predators' in 2010 with Adrien Brody, Topher Grace and Alice Braga  - the third film in the 'Predator' franchise - and the inventive 2013 concert film 'Metallica: Through The Never' which featured Dane DeHaan playing a roadie.

Working from a risible script by Chris Salmanpour, Neeson plays Matt Turner, a Berlin based financier whose marriage to Embeth Davidtz's Heather is falling apart.

Matt is too wrapped up in his job, you see, which really irritates Heather.

He also has two kids, Jack Champion's Zach and his younger sister, Lilly Aspell's Emily who often bicker.

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Tasked with taking his warring kids to school, he just about gets them into his SUV on the way to work.

But then, out of the blue, he gets a Pat Mustard-style phone call to inform him there's a bomb under his driver's seat that will explode if he or his children try to get out of the vehicle.

At first, a distraught Matt tries to hide from Zach and Emily what is going on.

But when the poor man starts missing turns on the way to school and speeding, they figure something's up - especially when the distorted voice on the end of the phone orders Matt to get them to hand over their phones.

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Matt is instructed by the mystery caller to go to a rendezvous point in the city where he finds another colleague Arian Moayed's Sylvian and a woman, Luca Markus' Kat in another car panicking because they have also been told a bomb has been placed in it.

Zach and Sylvian assume Matt is responsible for their predicaments.

They demand to know what he has done to provoke the bomber but Matt struggles to find an explanation.

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(SPOILER ALERT!!)

When a policeman approaches Sylvian's vehicle after spotting Kat in a state of distress, the bomb in their vehicle detonates.

Matt panics and flees the scene of the explosion.

However the sight of his SUV speeding away from the scene of the attack suddenly puts him in the frame for the bombing, with the media and Interpol eager to track him down.

The killer orders Matt to get Heather to withdraw the contents of his safety deposit box.

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He also orders the harassed father of two to drive to another rendezvous with his boss, Matthew Modine's Anders Muller who he is told to shoot using a revolver placed in the glove compartment.

With Matt increasingly in the frame for an outbreak of attacks across the city, can he and the kids escape their booby trapped vehicle and clear his name?

Handsomely shot in locations around Berlin by cinematographer Flavio Martinez Labiano, 'Retribution' is a woeful watch.

It's feebly scripted by Salmanpour, with some of the most hackneyed dialogue on any screen this year.

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The plot is ridiculous and Neeson spends all his time looking distressed - even before his character gets into his SUV.

Davidtz, Aspell, Champion, Moayed and Modine fare little better - churning out lame dialogue with all the passion of someone gutting fish.

Noma Dumezweni is handed a dot to dot role of an Interpol chief, Angela Brickmann who is unsure of Matt's innocence and she just goes through the motions.

So expect little of 'Retribution' - it's just another one of those Liam Neeson action thrillers that lacks any thrills.

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It's plot is so poorly executed, I'd be stunned after ten minutes if you haven't worked out what's really going on.

I clocked in that time who the villain was.

Antal's thriller is a poor blend of Joel Schumacher's 'Phone Booth' and Jan de Bont's 'Speed'.

It is dull beyond belief.

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In fact, it's so dull you'll probably find yourself wishing the villain really was Pat Mustard.

At least there'd be something to smile about instead of subjecting yourself to this drivel.

So let's hope Liam Neeson eventually tires of making substandard action thrillers.

And let's also hope Liam Neeson isn't planning a movie any time soon about a bus trip between Ballymena and Belfast, using his 65+ concessionary fare travel pass.

('Retribution' was released simultaneously in UK and Irish cinemas and on Sky Cinema/NowTV on October 27, 2023)