Liam Neeson's First Major Action Movie Was A Clint Eastwood Flick

Don Siegel's 1971 film "Dirty Harry" was written partly as a protest against the then-new Miranda Laws, passed by the Supreme Court decision Miranda v. Arizona in 1966. The film is about a grizzled San Francisco super-cop, Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), on the trail of a serial killer nicknamed Scorpio (Andrew Robinson), modeled after the real-life Zodiac killer. Callahan was frustrated because he knew Scorpio was guilty, but he was using the auspices of "prisoner's rights" to flaunt the system and stay free. Callahan would need to go rogue to apprehend him. 

Perhaps because of its topicality — but likely because of its hard-boiled tone and memorable "gruff" lead character — "Dirty Harry" was a gigantic hit, making $36 million on a $4 million budget. The character was indelible enough to return for multiple sequels over the years, each time pushing Callahan into a scenario wherein he would need to go rogue to apprehend a dangerous criminal or criminals. It's telling that Dirty Harry is known more for the model of gun he carried (a .44 magnum Smith & Wesson model 29) than for the crimes he stopped. 

The fifth and final film in the "Dirty Harry" series was 1988's "The Dead Pool," directed by Buddy Van Horn, Eastwood's collaborator on "Any Which Way You Can" and "Pink Cadillac." "The Dead Pool" may be the silliest film in the Dirty Harry series, as Callahan was long in the tooth, and the bitterness of the 1970s had long since worn off. "The Dead Pool" is also striking for the number of pre-fame stars on its cast. "The Dead Pool" was only Patricia Clarkson's second feature film after Brian De Palma's "The Untouchables," and Charles Martinet, best known to the world as the voice of Mario, had a cameo as a police reporter. A pre-"In Living Color" Jim Carrey played a whiny rock star.

And Liam Neeson played a greasy record producer with an ill-advised ponytail. It was the actor's first proper action movie.

The story of "The Dead Pool" is fun, and certainly lacks the grit of Don Siegel's 1971 original. The film begins when a twitchy rock star named Johnny Squares (Carrey) seemingly dies of a drug overdose. Callahan investigates and find that Squares has been murdered. He will eventually discover that Squares' producer, Peter Swann (Liam Neeson) is part of a macabre betting racket — the Dead Pool — that bets on when celebrities are going to die. Because Squares was murdered, it seems that someone in the Dead Pool was attempting to game the system. Neeson is seen wearing leather outfits and sporting one of the worst haircuts of his career. 

This was hardly Neeson's first film. He was in a film adaptation of "Pilgrim's Progress" in 1978, and had already had notable roles in the fantasy epics "Excalibur" and "Krull." His first leading role came in 1985, when he played the title character in Colin Gregg's "Lamb," a bleak Catholic drama about troubled children. He also played a priest in Roland Joffé's "The Mission" the following year, appeared in the 1987 legal thriller "Suspect," opposite Cher and Dennis Quaid, and played a randy ghost in Neil Jordan's "High Spirits" that same year. Neeson was already established as a reliable film presence. "The Dead Pool" was his first proper action movie, however, as it boasted gunfights as well as an absurd car chase through the streets of San Francisco with a remote control car. 

Neeson's character didn't get to throw any punches, but he did get to overact a little bit as a very slimy, villainous character. It's actually been rare that Neeson play outright villains in his movies. He's certainly played violent characters a lot, or characters who are morally dubious, but he has only been an antagonist a few times. In addition to "The Dead Pool," he was a villain in "Batman Begins," and, uh, "The Nut Job," wherein he played an evil raccoon.

It's worth remembering that Neeson wasn't considered an action hero until "Taken" came out in 2008. He had certainly been in films with spectacular action scenes before that, of course. The sword fight from "Rob Roy" is one for the ages, and Neeson starred in the superhero films "Darkman" and, as stated, "Batman Begins." But most of his roles tended to push him toward romantic leads, or tortured characters. He was large and tough, but rarely took roles that required him to throw a punch or fire a gun. Indeed, his deep, growly voice more often had him taking on roles wherein he was a leader or in a position of authority. Think of both "Schindler's List" as well as "The Chronicles of Narnia" movies. 

The "action hero" image we now have of Neeson was a late-career development, and it all springs from the success of "Taken," a film that made over $226 million on a $25 million budget. It was a pointedly irresponsible power fantasy about a divorced, middle-aged dad who gave himself the moral license to charge around Europe murdering hundreds of baddies to rescue his kidnapped daughter. The film changed the public's perception of Neeson, and he began taking on more and more action hero roles. He led so many action movies in such a small window of time, that /Film has said that they all count as spiritual "Taken" sequels. "Unknown," "Non-Stop," and "The Grey," for instance, are all "Taken" movies as far as I'm concerned. 

A look over the last decade of Neeson's career revealed a healthy mix of prestige dramas, family films, and many, many, many gritty action films. His next film will be an out-and-out slapstick comedy, a remake of/sequel to "The Naked Gun," wherein he played the son of Leslie Nielsen's Frank Drebin. After that, though, he has at least three additional action films on his docket. As a young man, Neeson often played soulful, gentle characters. Now in his early 70s, Neeson plays more violent than never.