Road Taxing: Neeson’s MONGOOSE is a Mis-Taken Mess…
Ryan ‘Fang’ Flanagan is an ex-POW whose marriage imploded after he couldn’t shake-off the PTSD the captivity and torture had caused. He maintains ties to his ex-wife Tara and doesn’t really approve of Todd, the new man in her life. His dislike becomes more when Tara ends up in the hospital after Todd beats her.
While getting her belongings from the mansion she’s fled, Flanagan encounters Todd and the ensuing confrontation leaves Todd fatally injured and Flanagan wounded. With the circumstantial evidence pointing to murder, Ryan is on the run and there’s no shortage of people who want to bring him down.
Even in a souped-up mustang, his ex-army buddies riding shotgun and an apparently sympathetic media, can he outrun the law and the corrupt machinations of a Texan sheriff?
The animal mongoose is a carnivorous mammal of the family Herpestidae, known for its agility, and snake‑fighting ability. The cinematic Mongoose is far more aimless and devoid of teeth. I’m all for silly, fluffy outings that get by on testosterone fancy and wish-fulfilment tropes, but even on those basic levels The Mongoose is a cheap and TOTAL misfire.
There’s never a good snake around when you need one.
Despite any evidence to the contrary, I don’t enjoy eviscerating films. The occasional well-formed snark is fine, but on the whole most films have some redeeming features and occasionally are so bad, they’re good – intentionally or not… and whatever the outcome, a team of people worked hard to produce the finished result. That’s usually worth recognising.
However, if anyone involved in pseudo-chase-flick The Mongoose has a particular set of skills, few of them appear on screen and it’s hard to think of a film less likely to feature in anyone’s top 100 movies of the year or to imagine a production that fails on quite so many obvious levels, despite all its potential assets. And, sadly, I’m including Steven Seagal films in that.
Once upon a time, Liam Nesson was Oscar-material but despite being just as charismatic as ever, he’s transitioned into a successful Mount Rushmore-esque figure of action vigilantism. Here, on creakingly familiar ground he shrugs and grizzles as ex-POW Ryan ‘Fang’ Flanagan, delivering unfunny punchlines and artificial anger as his fugitive figure drives around and encounters one roadblock after another. There’s a running joke that the purloined car (a flame-coloured Ford Mustang Shelby Super Snake) has an onboard AI computer called Helene (like Siri or Alexa), but despite some weird flirting betwixt driver and car (and a rushed paint-job in the middle of the film) it comes across as stilted: a Beta Version of Knight Rider‘s KITT for the Real Housewives generation.
…if anyone involved in pseudo-chase-flick The Mongoose has a particular set of skills, few of them appear on screen and it’s hard to think of a film less likely to feature in anyone’s top 100 movies of the year or to imagine a production that fails on quite so many obvious levels, despite all its potential assets…
The supporting cast, wasted though they are, are impressive names. Michael Chiklis (The Shield) is a great actor when given strong material, but here it’s most certainly one for the wallet as he chews scenery as a gurning, sneering Texas sheriff whose mission is to glare at obviously green-screened monitors, growl orders like a sleep-deprived J Jonah Jameson and shout down phone lines, ordering illegal responses. Marisa Tomeii can be relied upon to smoulder across the screen but here there’s simply no chemistry with her on-screen husband, even when she pleads with him not to go around to the house of her rich new partner who has just beaten her up (Has she ever seen a Neeson movie?). It also gives me no joy to say that Ving Rhames may have the Meats, but he doesn’t really have the moves. He looked ill in his most recent Mission Impossible appearance and here too he’s mostly sitting down (in kitchens, bars, helicopters). If he is ill, I hope for an imminent recovery.
For some utterly bizarre reason, the film also includes CNN presenter Laura Cotes (as herself) who sacrifices any credibility in an ongoing exposition-role detailing Flanagan’s past history to both her fictional in-universe audience and those watching The Mongoose itself. It’s creaky beyond belief, owing much to the infamous tone of OJ Simpson/bronco chase of old and the idea that a presenter or network would put some random non-famous fugitive on the air for a heart-to-heart and celebrate him as a hero when there’s a strong possibility – from limited information – that he’s just a common murderer, is unthinkable. In the endless ‘breaking news’ hours of coverage he gets, this apparently leads to universal acclaim for Flanagan and people cheering for his escape, his ex-POW status apparently enough to garner instant, inexplicable support. Even in this age of mecurucal, fluid interwebs devotion, it’s somewhat unlikely.
Perhaps some of the way this managed to make it to screens at all becomes clearer when you note that this is the directing debut of Mark Vanselow, whose previous cinematic outings were as a stunt coordinator and performer on the likes of The Naked Gun, Absolution, The Marksman, Blacklight and Honest Thief. A common denominator to those …yes, he’s Neeson’s stunt-double.
Sometimes people with such a background bring their skill-set and a fresh, practical energy (think how Stahelski transitioned from The Matrix movies to John Wick and the upcoming Highlander reboot). Sometimes… they don’t. The Mongoose unfortunately feels like a specific, deliberate showreel and calling-card and more like a called-in favour for a friend and one – ironically – where the stunts largely amount to repetitive off-road drifting that’s neither particularly fast nor furious.
Eternally spotless police-cars, surely just out of the showroom, keep in pursuit of Neeson’s equally shiny Mustang until they crash (or the cornered Flanagan merely drives around them… curse his three-point-turning superpowers!). The police-stations are just sterile workspaces where the work is for people to look worried and tap on keyboards and wonder if they are in frame and wondering what craft services have for lunch.
Films often cleverly fake-out their shooting locations and the joins are seamless. However, The Mongoose is mainly set in Arkansas and Texas, but it doesn’t take anyone with frequent flyer miles to distrust the car’s onboard mapping service. Ten minutes in and I quietly called out the Australian locale, not because I am some sort of sharp-eyed geographic genius, but rather because – despite some conveniently generic American road-signs thrown alongside the dusty outback trails like half-hearted debris – the film actually does so very little to hide the true locale. (It was filmed in Melbourne and Victoria and the architecture and environment are, frankly, obvious).
The editing and cinematography seem equally lazy and erratic – tinted flashbacks to ‘Afghanistan’ are randomly inserted with no creative segues and they appeared to have been filmed in a convenient sandpit with a few handfuls of bamboo (Doctor Who‘s quarries as alien worlds were more convincing). In those sequences, Neeson is supposed to be decades younger but merely darkening his beard fools no-one. Most of the helicopter scenes switch awkwardly and obviously between long-distance shots and cockpit close-ups (the latter are clearly taken while the copter is stationary and likely well-grounded).
The script and its execution, even for disposable ‘high-octane’ nonsense, are flimsy. People make statements filled with drama-school angst and that make little sense, the so-called ‘banter’ is painfully strained. At one point boo-hiss bad-guy Pope (Chiklis) orders SWAT to take down a helicopter that’s zooming over the Texas/Melbourne border (no, that’s not how it works) and then personally sends in fighter-pilots to blast Flanagan and cohorts to smithereens over the ocean (ditto). ICE officers look on stoically but there’s nothing here likely to improve their tarnished real life image.
The film, hitting cinemas this weekend, actually got leaked online back in August, though the idea that such a slip will hit its box-office is an opportunistic excuse and it feels more accurate to think it merely escaped to return to the wilds. Some films are so bad, they’re good, but though it could be a contender for a set of Razzies, the only way to watch this utter low-budget mess is with a beer in hand or with the over-generous idea that it’s a un-self-aware pastiche of fugitive films.
1/10
The Mongoose is released by Samuel Goldwyn Films on 30th October…