‘A Walk Among the Tombstones’ is grim business, reviews say

With a title like “A Walk Among the Tombstones,” the new crime thriller from writer-director Scott Frank and star Liam Neeson promises to journey into dark territory.

But just how dark Frank and Neeson got while adapting Lawrence Block’s novel -- about ex-cop and recovering alcoholic Matthew Scudder (Neeson) trying to solve a series of grisly kidnappings -- has surprised many film critics. Reviews have been mixed to positive, but most all agree that “Tombstones” is grim business.

The Times’ Kenneth Turan called “Tombstones” the “creepiest film I’ve seen in quite some time, and that’s not meant as a compliment.” The film has “a very modern emphasis on the graphic torture and mutilation of women,” Turan said, adding, “It may make me behind the times and out of touch to say it, but how did we get to a place where watching that kind of activity is considered entertainment?”

It’s a shame, because the film is otherwise “more than capably written and directed by Frank and well acted by star Neeson and his able supporting cast,” Turan said.

The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis, on the other hand, agreed that the movie is “nasty, brutal and unforgiving,” but also found it to be a rare example of “intelligent pulp.”

Dargis added, “‘A Walk Among the Tombstones’ can be tough to watch, particularly in its fleeting images of tortured women.” But although women suffer in the film, they do so “without becoming cinematic spectacles, a relief given how often their dead bodies are used as ornaments elsewhere. That decision distinguishes this movie from the usual genre fodder and dovetails with what emerges as its almost obsessive interest in the devastations of male misogyny and violence.”

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Walter Addiego wrote, “For a good, straight-ahead noirish crime thriller, you could do a lot worse than ‘A Walk Among the Tombstones.’” Frank, he said, is “good at establishing the downbeat milieu” and “makes fine use of the locations,” while Neeson “(almost) can do no wrong. He’s very good as Scudder, and with luck (and good box office), this could be the start of a series.”

The Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday is also hoping to see more of Neeson as Scudder, but “with more of the same patter, and much less splatter.” Echoing Turan, she wrote, “The look, style and smarts of ‘A Walk Among the Tombstones’ seem like such a refreshingly toned-down departure from the outlandishness of Neeson’s ‘Taken’ franchise that it’s all the more dismaying when the film shifts radically into a sadistic tableau of blood and gore.”

In a measured review, USA Today’s Claudia Puig declared “Tombstones” a “rather by-the-book police thriller, where suspense is in short supply and takes a back seat to crackling dialogue.” She added that “not all the writing works,” action sequences are “numbingly violent,” and it’s dispiriting that “every female character in the film is victimized and most are brutalized.” On the other hand, audiences “will be drawn to a more soulful Neeson as a downtrodden gumshoe with a strong sense of decency and dark streak of humor.”

And the Village Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl said that in spite of the unsettling violence, “Tombstones” is “an uncommonly well-made thriller. ... The painstaking buildup makes the killing, when it comes, more terrifying and cathartic than is the Hollywood norm. The ‘Taken’ films invite viewers to cheer violence; ‘A Walk Among the Tombstones,’ with some moral force, insists that you want nothing to do with it.”

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