Rating: R | Runtime: 106 minutes
Release Date: March 29th, 2024 (USA) / April 26th, 2024 (Ireland)
Studio: Netflix / Samuel Goldwyn Films
Director(s): Robert Lorenz
Writer(s): Mark Michael McNally & Terry Loane

There’s more to me than this. I’d like people to see it.

The trailer for Robert Lorenz’s In the Land of Saints and Sinners is more than a bit misleading. It tells us of Finbar Murphy’s (Liam Neeson) life as an assassin who’s made a home in a sleepy Irish village and how age is weighing on him to perhaps hang up his gun and try to do something good in the time that remains. Before he can, however, it appears his past has come back to haunt him. Something he did, something he’s been running from, has finally caught up with him in the form of Doireann McCann (Kerry Condon).

Except that’s not what’s happening in Mark Michael McNally and Terry Loane’s script. If anything, the past proves to be the one thing Finbar doesn’t have to worry about. He’s been careful. He’s had his reasons. And those he works for (Colm Meaney) and with (Jack Gleeson) respect him. The village calls him a friend and will do whatever is necessary to stand by him, regardless of the mystery of who he is, because they know he’d do the same. That’s ultimately why he’s in this mess. By helping a little neighborhood girl, Finbar places a target on all their backs.

Doireann is hiding out in this village with her IRA crew after a bombing gone wrong and her brother (Desmond Eastwood’s Curtis June) proves himself a liability by doing the opposite of lying low. He puts himself on Finbar’s radar, earning whatever retribution the latter decides to impose. And, being who she is, Doireann can’t simply let his demise go regardless of its necessity. She needs to know who “ordered the hit.” She needs retribution. And once Finbar sees that refusing to give it to her means she’ll burn the whole place down, he has no choice but to let it play out. Even if it means destroying his final wish to be “good.”

The result is thus much quieter than you might have been told by the marketing. This isn’t your usual Liam Neeson revenger with explosions and murders everywhere you turn. Finbar would love to just call it a day. He’d love to win a ceasefire knowing both he and Doireann have too much to lose and have already lost. Whereas she has proven she won’t bat an eye at collateral damage in her mission (the politics of this time and what the IRA is doing could have used a more delicate touch here), he will not let good people die in a wake of his making. And, perhaps, they won’t let him die trying to save them either.

Don’t therefore be surprised to find In the Land of Saints and Sinners at its best in its character-driven moments. The conversations between Finbar and Meaney (not to mention Anne Brogan’s kindly Josie). The more-than-meets-the-eye Gleeson earning a punch to the face as well as the endearing quality he imbues via Kevin Lynch. And, of course, the always wonderful Ciarán Hinds and Niamh Cusack adding a wealth of humanity to a tale that could have easily devolved into arbitrary bloodshed. These are real, innocent people caught in the crossfire of a personal grievance. So, maybe Finbar gets his chance at redemption after all.

---

Ciarán Hinds and Liam Neeson in IN THE LAND OF SAINTS AND SINNERS; courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films.