More than four years ago, in a review of “Blacklight” (remember that one? You don’t? No worries, I barely do myself), I wrote, “Another season, another ‘Liam Neeson Has Skills’ movie.” Guess what: Fall is turning now, and the rather uninspired Liam Neeson Has Skills action movie “The Fix” came out at the end of summer. So while we can’t say we’re due, a new Neeson is here.
“The Mongoose” doesn’t involve any of his relatives being kidnapped, but it does have a subplot in which his ex-wife, played by Marisa Tomei, has an abusive new boyfriend. And when Neeson’s character, an ex-Special Forces fellow named Ryan Flanagan but nicknamed “Fang” by his platoon or whatever it was, and further nicknamed “The Mongoose” for reasons we’ll get into later, meets the abusive boyfriend, the unctuous Todd (Brett Tucker), the character unwisely says, “I know what you are. What you’re capable of.” By which he, of course, means… “I know you have a particular set of skills.”
For most of the movie, however, Fang only shows off his driving skills. In a bright red Mustang Shelby Super Snake GT350 (“Super Snake” … I trust you are beginning to detect a subtextual theme here), he out-speeds scores of cop cars, weaves around those cop cars in insane against-traffic driving, executes several acutely sharp U-turns! And finds a way to make a pit stop to gas up even with the cops in hot pursuit.
All the while, he banters with the car’s sexy-voiced AI navigation system (shades of “Knight Rider”) and, as news coverage of his exploit makes him a populist hero (shades of “Vanishing Point”), nods approval to his new public in Texas and Arkansas. Not nodding approval is military chump Michael Chiklis, who’s taken it upon himself to stop Fang, and attends to his task looking like he’s suffering from acute indigestion.
The action, which also includes a hairy helicopter landing, is the movie’s best feature. It stands to reason, since the director is longtime stunt coordinator and performer Mark Vanselow, making his feature debut. Elsewhere, the movie leaves you pondering its choices. In the music department, for instance—why use a soundalike cover of Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” for the ex-wife ringtone on Fang’s phone? (You might find the answer in a repeated phrase in Nelly’s hit “Ride Wit Me?”) And when Fang gets CNN coverage from real-life CNN legal analyst Laura Coates, why is Fang depicted in a ludicrous AI-slop portrait? Do the producers think viewers will actually fall for this stuff, let it slide, or did they just get to a point in post where they decided to give up?
Thompson Evans’s screenplay teems with dialogue infelicities. Coates is required to deliver this inane speech: “The saying ‘never leave a man behind’ is a deeply ingrained principle in the military, especially within Special Forces. The sentiment…is a powerful cultural force within the armed services and fosters a strong sense of responsibility. It appears…that application is still standing even in this complex scenario.” Dude, the phrase is “no man left behind.”
When Fang gets an instant car-repainting, the bearded man who turns it around reveals himself as a Vietnam vet and intones, We mighta been in different wars, but we’re brothers.” On the phone with the ex-wife, maneuvering for a reconciliation if he makes it out of this chase alive, Fang recalls a favorite vacation spot: “As I recall, we did some epic boning on that beach.” I missed a few minutes of the movie after this, because I had to hide under the couch in embarrassment. Then there are the flashbacks to Afghanistan, where Fang endured much trauma and earned that nickname as a result of having outstared a cobra, just like Tom Laughlin in “The Trial of Billy Jack.”
Say what you will about the American military involvement in Afghanistan; it sure has been a gift to hack screenwriters. But hey. The car chases slap!
