Liam Neeson has made virtually the same movie at least eight times now. “Taken” and “A Walk Among The Tombstones” were not the same but had enough similarities to make one wonder if Neeson is in it only for the paycheck.

“Run All Night” (Rated R; 114 min) directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, continues the actor’s streak of serviceable action movies.

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It is hard to come up with an opinion of this film. Walking out of theater, I was left without feeling one way or the other. It just kind of happened. This feeling can be a death sentence for boring films, but this film was not dull. Only see this if you are hell-bent on seeing a movie this weekend.

Jimmy Conlon, played by Neeson, has been the go-to hitman for Shawn Maguire, played Ed Harris, since he took over the local crime syndicate. It causes him to become a haunted old man, who has no relationship with his son Mike, played by Joel Kinnaman, a limo driver who wants to keep his criminal father far away from his family.

Mike witnesses Maguire’s son, Danny, played by Boyd Holbrook, murder two Albanian gangsters. Before Danny can kill Mike for seeing this, Jimmy steps in and kills Danny, putting Mike and Jimmy on a race against time to save Mike from the wrath of Maguire.

The movie showed promise of having a few interesting elements, and it does not disappoint.

A sure fire way of making a seemingly terrible action movie into something more is by adding a unique style of action. A good example is 2014’s “John Wick,” a film everyone thought was a typical Keanu Reeve’s schlock. When the movie was released it surprised everyone with its unique gunfights and fantastic set pieces.

While the action in “Run All Night” never reaches the “John Wick” level of creativity and ingenuity, there are several scenes elevating the movie past its pay grade. The main sequence showing this is the epic car chase at the beginning. It does not bring anything new to the table, but the scene is pulse pounding and visual and visceral.

The movie tries to reach a higher level of action films but forgets this also involves setting up interesting and dynamic characters. Action movies are not really known for having multi-leveled characters, but “Run All Night” does not even reach the character development of an average action film.

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Many look at an actor doing the same thing repeatedly as something bad, but it is not the case. Neeson constantly turns in fantastic performances making films functional and average.

The film plays by the same rules as “A Walk Among the Tombstones,” “Unknown” and “Non-Stop,” just as one would expect from its trailer.  

Two examples are Jimmy and Mike. Jimmy is nothing more than the typical Neeson—a wise, unstoppable old man. 

The film tries to make him more developed by adding a haunted and drunken nature to him, but this backfires. It causes the inevitable heroic turn to come off as unnatural after the film spends no time building it.

The Mike’s character is left undeveloped because of the miscasting of Kinnaman. He has to be the worst actor in the film, his dialogue constantly coming off as monotone for no reason. Try not laughing at the actor’s delivery. It is tough.

The writer attempts making the character come off as hard and strong by giving him a boxing background. In an above average action movie, this trope would pay off with him helping Neeson fight various gangsters.

Instead, the character spends most of the film whining and yelling for help, losing any empathy the audience may have for him.

Stars: 3 out of 5.