The Commuter

This might have worked had "MacCauley" (Liam Neeson) just been an ordinary insurance salesman caught up in some antics on a train. Instead, though, he's a highly trained ex-cop and so any sense of jeopardy there might have been has already fallen down the gap between the coaches. Anyway, rather curiously and on the day when he has been laid off from his job of a decade, he is tasked by fellow passenger "Joanna" (Vera Farmiga) with finding one particular commuter. She disguises her request in some psycho-babble about there being only a limited number of human personality traits, and so by using some clues he ought to be able to deduce who the object person is. Is this really a) a friendly project to test his somewhat rusty detective skills to prove her scientific point or b) a more sinister plot to get him to do some dirty work for her and expose someone she cannot find by herself? Well that's hardly a million rouble question and although the train, as usual, serves well as a claustrophbic conduit for the ensuing escapades, the story is muddled and frankly quite uninteresting. Neeson has all the charisma of yesterday's milk, Farmiga should just have stuck to chasing poltergeists and frankly the less said about fellow ghostbuster Patrick Wilson's lacklustre efforts the better. If you are just looking for brain-fodder to watch whilst you're doing the ironing or batch cooking then this ought to keep you company, but please don't expect anything original or especially challenging.