The Ice Road Review

PLOT: When a distant diamond mine in Manitoba collapses, a rebellious ice highway trucker leads a rescue crew regardless of thawing waters.

REVIEW: I’ve mentioned it as soon as and I’ll say it once more – Liam Neeson is our technology’s Charles Bronson. Neeson appears content material churning out a sequence of modestly budgeted, environment friendly B-movies. We have come to count on a Neeson motion flick each six months or so. Whereas they are not artwork, normally they’re pretty entertaining regardless of the occasional dud (I would rank final 12 months’s Trustworthy Thief as his worst-ever star car). Lately, The Marksman was a stunning enchancment over a few of his extra uninspired autos. Netflix’s THE ICE ROAD is equally a reduce above the remaining – even when it suffers from some problems with its personal.

As soon as once more, Liam Neeson is enjoying a grumpy, taciturn loner- I would like to see him play a happy-go-lucky motion hero one in all nowadays. He is a gruff, robust truck driver who retains dropping jobs as a result of he beats up the truckers who make enjoyable of his aphasia-afflicted brother (Marcus Thomas). Desirous to get sufficient cash to purchase his personal rig, he and his brother take a harmful job up north to drive to a collapsed diamond mine over melting ice. That is a cool premise, as ice highway trucking is actual, and this job is cinematic. A strong ice-road trucking film may have given The Wages of Concern and Sorcerer a run for his or her cash, but it surely looks like writer-producer Jonathan Hensleigh (The Punisher) does not at all times think about his premise.

The largest drawback right here is {that a} villain will get labored into the plot a few third of the best way in, giving Neeson the possibility to do some taking pictures and fist-fights, with the principle unhealthy man amongst the rogues’ gallery assembled painfully simple to determine. A foul man is pointless, because the hazard of melting ice and truck calamities may have made this a superb catastrophe film. At instances, the precise trucking turns into the B-plot relatively than the A-plot.

Even nonetheless, it is a respectable Neeson flick as Hensleigh does a very good job conveying the hazard of the job, in addition to the ticking clock facet because the miners run out of air. On their finish, they wish to begin killing the weak to preserve air, with Holt McCallany and Martin Sensmeier as two of the extra heroic guys within the crew who will not let that occur. Neeson is reliable as standard within the lead. Giving him a brother humanizes him provides him an opportunity to emote slightly greater than standard (I am going to give Neeson some credit score – Bronson would have by no means cried onscreen- Liam has no drawback being susceptible). Laurence Fishburne has a disappointingly temporary function because the truck firm boss who assembles the crew. I anticipated him to be a lead – however he isn’t. I did like Amber Midthunder (who’s starring within the subsequent Predator film), who reveals some spunk as a first-nations driver who proves to be the one one subsequent to Neeson with some actual grit.

Whereas a B-movie, as are most Neeson flicks nowadays, I nonetheless had an honest sufficient time with The Ice Street, even when I am nostalgic for an period the place Neeson was thought of as legit an actor as somebody like Daniel Day-Lewis. I would like to see him escape the motion style slightly extra, however as at all times, he is a likable, sturdy lead even when he isn’t doing something you have not seen him do dozens of instances earlier than.