Vague Visages’ In the Land of Saints and Sinners review contains minor spoilers. Robert Lorenz’s 2023 movie features Liam Neeson, Kerry Condon and Jack Gleeson. Check out the VV home page for more film reviews, along with cast/character summaries, streaming guides and complete soundtrack song listings.

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Before Taken (2008), Liam Neeson starred in two movies about the struggle for Irish independence: Mike Hodges’ A Prayer for the Dying (1987), about an ex-IRA soldier on the run, and Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins (1986), in which the actor stars as Collins, a 20th century revolutionary advocating for a free Irish state. Besides the odd auteur collaboration and one or two buttoned-up indie films, the Neeson of today has long since moved past such dialogue-driven dramas, which is why Robert Lorenz’s In the Land of Saints and Sinners feels like such a breath of fresh air.

In the Land of Saints and Sinners spirits audiences away to the nowhere-nobody-nothing town of Glencolmcille on the windswept Irish coastline. Neeson plays Finbar Murphy, a weary hitman stoically approaching his retirement. But this is Ireland in the 1970s — west Ulster, at that — and there’s unfortunately no rest for the protagonist, not as long as there’s a war going on and bodies to bury. The opening act introduces a crew of IRA members, led by Doireann (Kerry Condon), as an orchestrated bombing accidentally kills some kids. The sequence is a long fuse with a brutal climax, and after that mistake, Doireann and her crew are on the run, so it’s off to that coastal village (whose name they can’t pronounce) to lie low until the heat dies down.

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The title of Lorenz’s 2024 film sets viewers up to identify morality in easy black and white. Finbar and Doireann symbolize the sinners as two killers who conduct their work in secret and have very little to show for it. The former character is content with his quiet life romancing his sweet neighbor, Rita (Niamh Cusack), and having a pint at the pub with the local lawman, Vincent O’Shea (Ciarán Hinds). Meanwhile, Doireann, has much more ambition with the rage to match, and she’s fighting for freedom rather than killing for cash. Lorenz and his screenwriters, Mark Michael McNally and Terry Loane, establish their characters well but don’t draggle them in shades of grey the way the material requires. Finbar, despite nabbing his hits and vanishing them Miller’s Crossing-style in the woods, is portrayed as a kind, gentle man, albeit the kind of person who knows his way around a double-barreled shotgun. And Doireann, despite dedicating her life to the cause of Irish independence, descends further and further into reckless ferocity and paroxysms the tighter the noose gets.

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In the Land of Saints and Sinners — though perfectly poised to explore the Troubles through the lens of a Neeson crime thriller — cares disappointingly little about its historical conflict. But the film evokes Irish history and culture better than many other Irish movies at the moment. Contrast In the Land of Saints and Sinners with Irish Wish, a 2024 Netflix film that’d might as well be a free CD included in a box of Lucky Charms, or compare it to Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) — a sophisticated, handsome and  endlessly entertaining production that nevertheless disregards Irish history in favor of a smooth, simplistic portrait of the national culture, replete with fiddles, lively pubs, supernatural old women, coastal cliffs and familiar tropes of violence, poverty and drunkenness.

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Condon, Oscar-nominated for her role in The Banshees of Inisherin, evokes the chill and ice of Rebecca Ferguson’s most intimidating characters. And in the past decade, Neeson has rarely been better — the actor is great as an action man, but Finbar matches his age. And Neeson’s voice is so iconic that it’s easy to forget how perfect his visage is for these gruff, weathered characters. He has a cliff-like face, craggy and severe, and it can harden when Finbar clenches his jaw and pulls the trigger just as easily as it can soften and glow when he’s with friends, keeping his hitman life a secret. It’s wonderful to see Neeson paired with an age-appropriate love interest, too, as he and Cusack have delightful, wholesome chemistry.

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And then there’s Hinds, whose affable presence during In the Land of Saints and Sinners  brightens up everything. He’s charming, sympathetic and sincere as the small-town policeman who’s in way over his head. Rounding out the impressive cast is Game of Thrones alum Jack Gleeson (cheesing it up in a wonderfully despicable role), Colm Meaney (as Finbar’s guarded but friendly employer) and Dublin Murders star Sarah Greene (making a meal out of a relatively small bartender part).

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In the Land of Saints and Sinners truly sings during its quietest moments. Despite the ever-present war between Irish Republicans and the Loyalists, the most energetic moments of the film are when Rita shares gardening tips with Finbar, or when Finbar and Vinnie shoot cans together on the cliffs, or when the camera glides over the dark, churning sea as waves crash against the rocks, perhaps reminding viewers of the conflict that’s creeping in the darkness and has just arrived in Finbar’s town uninvited. Maybe that’s the moral purpose of In the Land of Saints and Sinners, as well as some thematic tissue it shares with The Banshees of Inisherin: Ireland, for all its vast and beautiful landscapes, is still an island. Conflict travels quickly and easily, and — like an infection — it doesn’t take long for war to spread. Even for quiet and little Glencolmcille, history catches up.

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Lorenz mostly succeeds at transplanting the usual Neeson action to a specific historical setting. In the Land of Saints and Sinners comes up short, however, when exploring the shallow end of its political context. If the setting and history separate the film from Neeson’s most recent output, it’s disappointing that Lorenz’s film stays at waist depth, where its toes can still touch the bottom. The Troubles might be raging in the background, but it’s never clear what Finbar thinks of his countrymen fighting for independence. Lorenz is much more interested in essentially remaking High Noon (1952) with Neeson supplanting Gary Cooper’s role as Marshal Will Kane, though the director is most interested in the all-consuming nature of violence and how it shatters the peace of a small town than he is in examining justice, honor, mob mentality or the law.

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If all a man knows is violence, how’s he going to claw his way to salvation? This is a question that hangs over Finbar throughout In the Land of Saints and Sinners, and given Lorenz’s previous credits, it’s one that seemingly haunts the director. In the Land of Saints and Sinners tries to push into uncharted territory for its genre, just as Lorenz’s previous Neeson thriller, The Marksman (2021), did by focusing on tensions at the U.S-Mexico border.

Clement Tyler Obropta is a writer living in Scotland. He is the lead culture editor at MAYDAY magazine and a contributing editor at Film Inquiry. 

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