In recent years, action heroism has gone in an interesting direction with sympathetic middle-aged men with “a specific set of skills” gaining audience attention. We’ve just seen it with Denzel Washington’s The Equalizer, but it’s Liam Neeson’s surprise 2008 hit Taken that kicked the ass-kicking trend up the ass.
With the reveal of the third film in trailer form, as well as the recent release of Neeson’s private eye thriller A Walk Among the Tombstones, we thought it necessary to list the top 10 asses Liam Neeson has ever kicked on-screen.
10. Annoyed Airline Passengers – Non-Stop
Earlier this year, Liam Neeson showed that you don’t need to be guilty for him to find a reason to kick your ass. As the heavily flawed airline marshal Bill, still on a morning bender and feeling sorry for himself, he’s confronted with a killer looking to play mind games with him. He’s not exactly in the right mental state for that, so when passengers become increasingly frustrated with the frequent disturbances, he has no problem following up a slight suspicion with a swift boot to the bottom.
9. Physics – The A-Team
As Hannibal, master planner of The A-Team, there were many asses he kicked, all in the call of duty. But the moment he found himself and his team trapped in a falling tank, he bent over the laws of gravity to deliver his greatest ass-kicking yet. In straight defiance of what’s physically possible, Hannibal directs the tank turret to shoot sideways, aiming the vehicle towards the lake before firing downwards to soften the landing. Take that, Sir Issac Newton.
8. Some droids ‘n’ stuff – Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
Qui-gon Jinn was a character played by Liam Neeson. Qui-gon Jinn is a Jedi. Qui-gon Jinn beat up some droids. Some other stuff happened. We don’t really talk about that any more.
7. Jim Carrey – The Dead Pool
Before people knew who he was, Liam Neeson had a small role in one of the Dirty Harry films – The Dead Pool – as an amateur filmmaker working with a troubled star. That star was also played by a before-you-knew-him A-lister Jim Carrey. After an Exorcist-rip-off (or homage) music video soundtracked by Guns n F–kin’ Roses, the two delivered equal amounts of back-and-forth verbal ass-kickery before Jim concedes by saying he’ll “get it together, and then we’ll kick some ass.”
6. Competing News Stations – Anchorman 2
Liam Neeson was one of 137 cameos in Anchorman 2’s final battle scene, leading The History Network in the war for news-presenting supremacy (“We’re news too, only news told much, much later”). Aided by the mighty Minotaur and the ghost of Stonewall Jackson, Neeson picks up a mortar and lays waste to MTV, BBC, ESPN, Entertainment News and Canadian News Team. Precisely which asses he kicked remains unclear, but you can be damn sure he booted those butts to a bygone era.
5. Nazi Idealism – Schindler’s List
As real-life World War 2 hero Oskar Schindler, Neeson delivered a financial ass-kicking to the Nazis’ collective asses by tricking them into trading over Jews. Schindler turned his factory into a Jewish safe haven, saving thousands of lives in the process. It’s an astonishing effort that would have been much higher on the list except… well… he could’ve done more. (But he did so much!)
4. An Office Chair – The LEGO Movie
Even LEGO Neeson kicks blocky ass, but none saw it worse than the rear end of an office chair that Neeson’s Bad Cop uses to vent his many frustrations. When our hero Emmet first escapes his clutches, one of his robot officers brings the chair out specifically for him to kick five times before throwing it 20 storeys in the air – landing precisely on another fleeing officer.
3. That Bastard Who Took His Daughter – Taken
We could have easily replaced ‘That Bastard Who Took His Daughter’ with ‘Europe’s Entire Underground Prostitution Ring’, but the most iconic ass Neeson kicked in his rise-to-action-glory classic Taken was the cocky kidnapper who, after being on the receiving end of one of cinema’s most quoted over-the-phone death-threats, wished the deadly dad “Good luck.” The next time they meet, that bastard who took his daughter swallowed his own smashed-in teeth and crapped out a jawline.
2. Wolves – The Grey
Unfortunately for this 2011 action-thriller essay about mortality, the end of the trailer kind of gives away the ending while also promising a Wolf vs Neeson boxing match that we never actually get to see. Many felt ripped-off, understandably, but that shouldn’t diminish the fact that when the movie spent 100 minutes asking “How do you accept your fate?” Neeson replied by TAKING ON A FREAKIN’ MONSTER WOLF WITH GLASS-SHARDS TAPED TO HIS GOD-DAMN KNUCKLES!
1. Bruce Wayne – Batman Begins
In his entire ass-kicking career, no backside beat-down was as significant as the one he delivered as Ra’s Al Ghul to rich-boy orphan Bruce Wayne. Undergoing Al Ghul’s training meant undergoing a lot of kicks-in-the-ass for Bruce Wayne, a necessary component for him to become one of pop culture’s celebrated ass-kickers. Essentially, Neeson ass-kicked Bruce Wayne into becoming Batman.
And even when Bruce made his complete transformation, pimped out with his million-dollar gadgets and bulletproof body armour, Ra’s still held his own in a fist fight finale against the caped crusader dressed only in a stylin’ suit. In the end, Bruce left Al Ghul to die in a collapsing train – even The Dark Knight knew that the only way to beat Liam Neeson was to flee.
