Title: 'The Mongoose' Review: Liam Neeson in a Bland Actioner URL Source: https://variety.com/2026/film/reviews/the-mongoose-review-liam-neeson-1236937225/ Published Time: 2026-11-02T07:44:07+00:00 Markdown Content: 1. [Home](https://variety.com/) 2. [Film](https://variety.com/v/film/) 3. [Reviews](https://variety.com/c/reviews/) ## ‘The Mongoose’ Review: Liam Neeson Goes on the Run in a Bland Actioner The first film directed by veteran stunt coordinator Mark Vanselow works too hard to generate sympathy for Neeson's fugitive war hero.  Samuel Goldwyn Pictures Since the days of “Vanishing Point” and Steven Spielberg’s “The Sugarland Express,” Hollywood has been making films about fugitives in fast cars who become media-sensation folk heroes.
Companies like American International Pictures and Roger Corman’s New World Pictures would deliver movies like this a few times a year back in the 1970s, while simultaneously introducing a separate strain of exploitation stories about American veterans who return from Vietnam out of step from, or in conflict with, their civilian counterparts.
Several decades and countless copycats of “Rolling Thunder” and “First Blood” later, there’s “[The Mongoose](https://variety.com/t/the-mongoose/),” a film conceived in the spirit of those twin subgenres, but without a single deeper thought in its script than “honoring the troops” and showcasing the capabilities of a Shelby Super Snake.
Starring [Liam Neeson](https://variety.com/t/liam-neeson/) as a war hero on the run from the cops, the directorial debut of stunt coordinator [Mark Vanselow](https://variety.com/t/mark-vanselow/) delivers lots of vehicular action, some of it quite fun.
But despite a stacked supporting cast (including [Marisa Tomei](https://variety.com/t/marisa-tomei/), [Ving Rhames](https://variety.com/t/ving-rhames/) and Michael Chiklis), the script by Thompson Evans is so committed to ensuring that the audience stays on the right side of the developing conflict that there’s never a moment to question the outcome of the story that the filmmakers are telling.
Neeson plays Ryan “Fang” Flanagan, a Special Forces commander who was captured in Afghanistan back in 2005. Although he and his soldiers Tanker (Rhames) and Munch (Marcus Thomas) outsmarted their captors, their escape came at the cost of their comrade Wiz’s (Ryan Morgan) life.