Jim (Liam Neeson) is a rancher on the Arizona border. Spending his days checking on his cattle and radioing in sightings of illegal immigrants to his step-daughter and border patrol agent Sarah (Kathryn Winnick). Until that is he comes across Rosa (Teresa Ruiz) and her son Miguel (Jacob Perez) fleeing from the Mexican Cartel. One firefight later and he is making a promise to a dying Rosa that he will get her son to family in Chicago. 

The Marksman is the sort of film that marks Liam Neeson’s dangerous slide into direct to streaming film ignominy. There is very little of worth or interest in the entire film and for those thinking Neeson’s character might have a particular set of ‘marksman’ skills they will be very disappointed to know the action is incredibly rare and astonishingly perfunctory. 

The plot is dangerously close to last year’s terrible Cry Macho. Old geezer takes Mexican boy on road trip to meet a family he does not know whilst faceless dangerous people chase. Although, and I can not believe I am saying this, at least Cry Macho felt like it had a moral to tell. At one point Jim and Miguel even watch a Clint Eastwood film on the television perhaps in search of theirs? 

Politically I am not sure what this film was going for either. Jim’s character happily reports immigrants to Border Patrol, decries the government for not sorting it out in a drunken rage, persuades a gun shop owner to let him buy some weapons without a background check because he is in the sort of trouble the police can not help with, teaches an eight year old how to shoot said gun before then instantly telling him it is not right to kill. 

All in all a complete waste of time. Next time Liam can you check the film either has a good story to tell or some more action to distract us all from how dull it is?