The Fix
review by Bobby Blakey
Ever since his Taken series I am all here for anything with Liam Neeson kicking some butt. Sure, not all are winners, but I will always be there to find out. As of late he has been doing more either limited release or straight to digital features that have been a mixed bag, but I am still always all in. His latest film, The Fix teams him up with Zachary Levi from Bunraku director Guy Moshe and co-stars Quincy Isaiah, Wes Chatham, Jake Choi, Augusto Aguilera, Navid Negahban, Elnaaz Norouzi, Grant Harvey, Lara Wolf, Annet Mahendru, and Titus Welliver. Could this film bring the action it promises, or will it be a failed mission?
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The Fix follows a group of war-torn CIA operators mentored by “Larry” and led by “Tucker” who, after their mission in Afghanistan goes tragically wrong, enter the heart of Tehran to earn redemption by pulling off a daring rescue.
This is one of those films that offers a strong cast in both Neeson and Levi but gets lost in the story trying to do too much but not really offering anything up in the end. The story initially kicks things into high gear with a well-executed mission for the team that works even if it is cliché in its overall execution. From that point forward it tries so hard to be deeper, bringing in so many layers, but weaves through them leaving a lot of moments that should be more impactfully as a afterthought.
Despite Neeson being on the cover and one of the top billed in the art he is barely in the film as more of a big cameo. He is pivotal to the entire story, but rarely there to do anything. He is good with what he is working with even when its story is a mess. I was pleasantly surprised by Levi in this type of role as he carries it well. He is believable and could bring something great to this kind of thing with a better script, but it’s hard to root for this character who is a constant catalyst of bad decisions and troubled past.
The film tries to inject too many elements in hopes of offering twists and turns that make it strong and clever but instead tends to forget important elements and you see all these twists coming a mile away. When you get the surprises of betrayal and who is involved it just doesn’t seem to have a big impact that it needed. So many people seemed to let things go or ignore insane things that happened that should have been a major change to the whole thing. There were even injuries in some of the firefights that were catastrophic and yet gets tossed aside after the sequence and not really addressed in an important way.
In the end it is gritty tone is good and the action here is well done, but nothing we haven’t seen before. Where its faults are in the story keeping it from being the impactful story it could have been. It’s not bad by any means and is worth a watch but just don’t expect anything you haven’t seen before.
Decide for yourself and check out The Fix in theaters now from Inagural Entertainment.