Blacklight Movie Review

“Blacklight” – Hey it’s no longer only a far-out glow-in-the-dark poster at Spencer’s in the Mall. Now it is a full-blown movie.  But this run-of-the-mill thriller is a new way to bring some action to some older actors. There is a big conspiracy at a major government agency, and the hero will get some help from an up-and-coming new journalist. Stop me if you’ve heard this before…

Every intelligent Federal Bureau needs an off-the-books fixer. They need somebody to come in and lend a hand to deep undercover agents who need some help.  Travis Block (played by Liam Neeson) is that special fixer to the head of the Agency. Gabe Robinson (played by Aidan Quinn) depends on his friend Travis to go into sticky situations and extract agents who have difficulty with undercover operations. Travis works with stealth and speed, which is pretty good for an AARP-approved guy. He’s not in his fifties anymore, ya know…

Travis is worn out and is feeling his age. If he was called a G-Man, the G would stand for Geezer. He has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and he needs everything just right. So when Gabe calls on Travis to ‘fix’ a situation with an agent named Dusty Crane (played by Taylor John Smith), Travis complies. Dusty has a wild compulsion himself, to spill the beans to a journalist about some dirty deeds – and they are not done dirt cheap. No, his information could take down a lot of top brass in the FBI.

Mira Jones (played by Emmy Raver-Lampman) is an investigative journalist, and is just about to make contact with Dusty to get some deep-cover details. Travis intervenes and Dusty gets away. Dusty tries to contact Mira again, and Dusty winds up pushing up daisies. Mira got a basic outline of what was going on. Travis wants to know what she got from Dusty, but she is protecting her source. Travis is looking out for what might be in store, and it could involve Mira, as well as his daughter and grand-daughter.

Amanda Block (played by Claire van der Boom) is sick of Travis making her daughter paranoid about the world. She knows that Travis cannot be counted on to be a good grand-father, because of his job. He wants to quit, and tells Gabe Robinson his plans. But the Bureau needs Travis to stay with the program, because things are looking dicey. Mira finds that her editor has stolen her story and ran it under his name.  Her boss Drew (played by Tim Draxl) also winds up as a morgue resident – due to a ‘traffic accident’.

But after that, Travis starts to work with Mira to connect some dots. And they up seem to point up the chain to his boss. Soon after that, Amanda disappears without a trace with her daughter. Travis knows there is only man in D.C. with enough pull to make that happen. Mira comes clean about everything that Dusty told her, and how he was going to deliver documents to prove is all. But now he’s dead, the documents are gone, and Amanda is missing. Travis needs to use a “particular set of skills” that could break the conspiracy wide open.

“Blacklight” is an average thriller with a way of making the action look tedious. Some car chase scenes and fight sequences break out once in a while, and they are fine. But when you have a lead actor (Liam Neeson) who looks like should he downing more Geritol than whisky, the fight scenes slow down a bit. The story moves back and forth between situations and characters, and it very slowly builds to an obvious reveal of the bad guy.

Liam Neeson is doing what he has done ever since “Taken”, by making a valid attempt at being a misunderstood gruff tough guy. He will some day take the hint from the character that he plays, and finally retire. Emmy Raver-Lampman does a very fine job at being a character that has moral standards and will fight to uncover the truth. Aidan Quinn might want to check out some retirement homes along with Neeson.

“Blacklight” does it’s best to take a weak story line and only adequate action sequences and assemble it into a top-notch thriller. Than add in main actors who are well past retirement age, and you can see this “light’ does not shine all that brightly…