He likes sitting in bars drinking coffee alongside unsavory characters. [14] On January 30, 2014, it was announced the film would be released on September 19, 2014. The girl Scudder accidentally killed has the classic blood on a white blouse. He seemed very human, and didn't even want to handle this case to begin with. When a drug dealer's 14-year-old daughter is also kidnapped, Scudder heads a group to rescue her. A Walk Among the Tombstones doesn't entirely transcend its genre clichs, but it does offer Liam Neeson one of his more compelling roles in recent memory, and that's often enough. Scudder's attendance at AA meetings was a bigger part of the novel, while the movie shows the first meeting between the ex-cop and his young friend/assistant TJ, but in the novels, he was introduced in an earlier book. The haunted title of A Walk Among the Tombstones suggests that one's bigoted reflexes are common, lying just beneath the surface. A Walk Among the Tombstones is a 2014 American neo-noir action thriller film [5] [6] [7] [8] directed and written by Scott Frank, and based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Lawrence Block. Stevens evokes every shade of the self-made drug kingpins thoughts: His hands are tied, but he visibly hungers to wrap them around the killers necks. Get the freshest reviews, news, and more delivered right to your inbox! In fact, at first it's hard to see where tombstones fit in at all. Scudder then enters a bar and gets coffee with shots. [11] Producers invited author Block to the set to watch filming. She actually survives, though not without losing a finger it turns out that a stray bullet from Scudder killed a young girl. The thing to remember about Block and Scudder is that alcohol and Alcoholics Anonymous are central. Heres what went down. A Walk Among The Tombstones' movie finale sees Scudder and Kenny tracking down kidnapper Albert after the gunfight, with the latter having killed wounded partner Ray. Please click the link below to receive your verification email. Im glad they left T.J. out of the trailers, though. The gay villains of A Walk Among the Tombstones are an effete duo who dress in Bobbsey Twin uniformity. And he left him barely alive in the basement along with his dead partner in crime. My main question is: How did T.J. get into the van with the fire fight going on? Eight years previously, Detective Matthew "Matt" Scudder, in a car with his partner, is urged to get help and is told he is not a reliable backup. I also remember Ray saying that Kenny did him wrong somehow. When Scudder reluctantly agrees to help a heroin trafficker (Dan Stevens) hunt down the men who kidnapped and then brutally murdered his wife, the PI learns that this is not the first time these men have committed this sort of twisted crimenor will it be the last. Theyre grinning kidnappers of women who take the ransom and then return their victims, as agreed only lovingly cut into small pieces. As for which is better, its a bit of an unfair question to ask. And what happens next changes dramatically from Blocks book. Matt buys TJ some essentials and protects him. 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A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy New York City, 1991 - Detective Matt Scudder (Liam Neeson) is in a car with his partner. Coming Soon, Regal Scudder refuses. THE FILM: Despite having a run-of-the-mill story, A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES has some of best character work that Liam Neeson has done in a long time. The movie follows private investigator Matthew Scudder hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife. Nothing more, nothing less. Physically in the cold, mentally in the Caribbean. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he'd like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site. and the Kenny brings Scudder to Yuri Landau's home, where the kidnappers call and arrange to exchange ransom for Lucia at a cemetery. Set in 1999, the film follows a retired cop turned private investigator Matthew Scudder being dragged into a kidnapping/murder case. Written & Directed by Scott Frank. Leave it to the real cops, he told the guy. Action, RT Podcast: Ep. 10 Video Games That Need a Live Action Adaptation, 2023's Most Anticipated Sequels, Prequels, and Spin-offs. Blood covers a kitchen floor and walls, and somebody bleeds out on a stairway. Meanwhile, Scudder grows closer to TJ, encouraging the boy to study and avoid a life of crime. Albert inspects the money and discovers some were counterfeit. This password will be used to sign into all, Okay, TikTok, You Can Calm Down About Aubrey Plaza at the SAG Awards Now, Shakira Takes Some Pointers From Taylor Swift, The Surprisingly Contrarian Case Against Lying About Science, Ed Sheeran Completes His PEMDAS Era With New Album, ASTROs Rocky Leaves the Group After Ending Contract. All rights reserved. The killersyeah, there were definitely two of themdidnt just pull Kennys name out of the phone book. While the broad strokes of A Walk Among The Tombstones are taken right from the book, there are several key differences in the movie. A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) Plot Showing all 4 items Jump to: Summaries (3) Synopsis (1) Summaries Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife. TJ In 2002, Harrison Ford was attached to star and D. J. Caruso to direct. You\'ll receive the next newsletter in your inbox. 1:28. Stream songs including "Main Title", "We Got Your Wife." and more. 6. Mystery & thriller, When the fourteen year-old daughter of a drug dealer is also kidnapped, Scudder heads up a group to rescue the teenager. TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Verified reviews are considered more trustworthy by fellow moviegoers. And there I would leave it if not for that botched climax. And as the book closes, Kenan/Kenny leaves the country to start a new life abroad, in another segment of the familys illegal businesses around the world. Influencers: Profiles of a Partnership 2022, How to Pitch Stories and Articles to IndieWire, IndieWire's Chief Film Critic Eric Kohn Picks the Best Movies of 2020 -- Year in Review, 'Adventure Time' Is Slowly Going Off the Air, And Everyone's Moving On, Oscar Voters Go International For Best Live Action Short Picks, though the box office suggests there might not be. It's the reason he quit being a cop and gave up drinking. Kennys brother Peter is a drug addict who attends AA meetings with Matt. He meets TJ, a homeless streetwise youth. "A Walk among the Tombstones" is a gloomy crime film developed in slow pace, but with a complex story. Shes dead. But its probably something expository dialogue couldve handled a bit more smoothly, without so obviously handholding the audience. Despite a screenplay by Oliver Stone and a great supporting cast, it was a critical and financial bomb. It seems like they killed her even after he paid them. Scudder researches similar killings at a public library. Matt Scudder. Terms of Service apply. i really liked it overal, it gave a bit of a gran torino vibe in the best possible way, the song during the credit's black hole sun really suited the atmosphere. For one thing, Scudder plays only a peripheral role an action-movie no-no. During the shootout in 1991, he was intoxicated. This was probably inevitable. Matt Follows Loogan. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. By creating an account, you agree to the He had conspired to take Leila away from Reuben, who is a drug dealer, and help her stop using drugs. The site's critical consensus reads, "A Walk Among the Tombstones doesn't entirely transcend its genre clichs, but it does offer Liam Neeson one of his more compelling roles in recent memory, and that's often enough. Because this is actually more of a gumshoe investigator's tale, a gritty cop-turned-unlicensed . Ah thank you! The first big-screen adaptation of these novels was 1986's 8 Million Ways To Die, which cast Jeff Bridges as Scudder. The film's opening flashback sequence (borrowed from Block's first book in the Scudder series, 1976's " The Sins Of The Fathers ") with Liam Neeson 's alcoholic cop Matt Scudder taking down some. When Scudder reluctantly agrees to help a heroin trafficker (Dan Stevens) hunt down the men who kidnapped and then brutally murdered his wife, the PI learns that this . All but one of the kidnapped women are killed. Former cop Matt Scudder is now a private eye. "I just wanted" Maybe "I just wanted to make Ray happy?". Also crucial to Scudders life is Alcoholics Anonymous. Cinemark Then I thought, if this heres a movie, what I do is slip in the back an hunker down tween the front an back seats. Its true that the books ending would have been hard to bring off. But when he understands the depth of the murderers depravity and the inevitability that theyll kill again and again he knows he has no choice. Never have I been so grateful for an absent dialect coach. But then I thought, TJ, this aint no movie, an you too young to die. TJ. Throughout the whole movie, I just wanted Ray and his companion to die. Its not quite a guiding force, but it keeps him grounded, particularly in a vocation that exposes him to some abhorrent crimes and people, the kind that would make returning the bottle a very attractive proposition. ASTRO will continue on as a five member K-Pop group. How viewers can change the meaning of a great artists work. I heard the trailers spoiled a bit much, good thing I didn't seem 'em. Neeson turns in a solid performance, backed by a good supporting cast that features Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) as a sympathetic drug trafficker and a couple of really vicious bad guys. Tombstones really feels like a New York City story, and with some beautiful work from cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr., that palpably evokes the neighbourhoods that Scudder haunts in the novel as well. For while this R-rated and often dour flick doesnt applaud violence, it certainly crams lots of it in. And there were other little strings, tiny bits and pieces of the story that pleaded to be pulled at and worried over. Good movie. Overall though, I thought it was a very good movie, well acted and written. Submissions should be for the purpose of informing or initiating a discussion, not just to entertain readers. Jonas. Now that's out of the way, a brief introduction. Get The Latest IndieWire Alerts And Newsletters Delivered Directly To Your Inbox. Its an interesting but not quite essential element of book, and Frank is right to drop it for the movie. Its clear from the sunless palette and the measured, one-thing-after-another pacing that Frank loves Blocks work, and that goes a long way. Hence why the former killed the latter, because he had gotten what he wanted and didn't like the dude. I couldn't be happier about either the star or the writer/director, both of them genuine artists and brilliant professionals. Yet Hollywood seems to focus on the latter, not deviating from the stoic man who can rip armies of murderers asunder and come out swinging. Neither is it some kind of man-against-the-monsters supernatural thriller like the title might suggest. the movie should rated R+ cause it has some pretty seriously gross topics. Next: The Grey Ending Explained: Who Wins Liam Neeson's Wolf Fight. Kenny offers to lend Yuri $600,000 and Yuri will supply $210,000 of counterfeit money. He goes up into the rooftop and finds a shed, where Loogan is living. The trailers did kind of spoil a bit. A Walk Among The Tombstones: Book Vs Movie Differences. with updates on movies, TV shows, Rotten Tomatoes podcast and more. He can still see the little 8-year-old girl he killed. The movie ends on a more hopeful note than the novel, with Matt coming back from killing Albert to see TJ asleep and having drawn a version of himself as a superhero with a sickle emblem on his outfit - a reference to his sickle cell anemia. Drug dealer Kenny Kristo (Dan Stevens, The Guest) and his brother Pete (Boyd Holbrook) were Lebanese in the novel and whereas the movie ends with both men dead - with Pete dying during the graveyard shootout and Kenny being murdered offscreen - the book plays out much differently. Your AMC Ticket Confirmation# can be found in your order confirmation email. He told the guy and finds a shed, where Loogan is living 14-year-old daughter also., & quot ; We Got your Wife. & quot ; and more delivered right to your.... 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