In the Land of Saints and Sinners
Courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films
It feels like Liam Neeson has been remaking the Taken movies for almost 20 years.
He plays some former badass pulled back into combat to rescue someone, kill someone, save a town, and all manner of other missions. It turns out, most of these movies do great on Netflix.
Neeson holding a gun in a thumbnail image on a streaming platform? Instant watch.
Most of these movies are bad. Not that long ago, we had Ice Road: Vengeance, a movie with a 17% critic and 28% audience Rotten Tomatoes score, which took the No. 1 spot on the Netflix viewed list. Currently at No. 2, we have In the Land of Saints and Sinners, a film in which Neeson’s character is “eager to leave his dark past behind” until he has to fight terrorists in Ireland.
Well, good news: Unlike a dozen other post-Taken action movies, this 2023 feature is actually great. It has an 83% from over 80 critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 74% audience score. That’s higher than usual. It’s even higher than Taken, which has a 60% critic score (albeit an 85% audience score with 250,000 votes in).
In the Land of Saints and Sinners joins a host of other Neeson movies currently available on Netflix, including The Ice Road, The Ice Road: Vengeance, The Marksman, Cold Pursuit and Non-Stop.
You used to be able to find the Taken trilogy, The Commuter, Honesty Thief, Unknown, The Grey, Run All Night and A Walk Among the Tombstones until they rotated out.
I really love The Grey, which has Neeson fighting the weather and wolves instead of terrorists and kidnappers for once.
In the Land of Saints and Sinners is behind only one film on the Top 10 movies in the U.S. list right now: The Last House, a heavily-promoted Netflix original horror movie starring Greta Lee and Wagner Moura. It put up a 27% critic score and 29% audience score. Even if I watch about 40 horror movies a year, I don’t think I’m going to waste my time with this one.
Here are some sample critics’ comments for Saints and Sinners that say why the film is so good compared to Neeson’s other action features:
- Empire – “A solid, old-fashioned Irish Western about what it means to hang up your rifle. It isn’t especially deep, but it’s good to see Liam Neeson find some character depth among the usual shooting and grumbling.”
- Tribune – “In the “Neeson skills” canon, “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” proves to be a gem, the performances elevating an enjoyably pulpy thriller.”
I wonder who has done more of this kind of thing, Neeson or Jason Statham, who has been remaking versions of The Transporter for 24 years now. I’d argue most of Statham’s are better than Neeson’s. But Neeson’s are almost always crowd-pleasers.
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