Dear Liam Neeson,
This year you hit 60, and I'm the first to celebrate the anniversary, but I have to question whether you have lost all sense of discrimination about which films you appear in.
I suspect that most film lovers admire you at your best, but even the most dedicated fan might wonder what impels you to appear as a) Zeus in the 2 Titan movies, b) a guy who likes killing people in 2 Taken films, not to mention Unknown, and c) the voice of Aslan in the Narnia films. Is it a question of money, of profile, of boredom? Isn't there some work needs doing in the garden? I'm sure the kids would like to see more of you.
I'll come back to some of the more disappointing aspects of your career, and start with the high points. These would include Schindler's List, Rob Roy, Michael Collins and Kinsey. Notice what they have in common? That's right, real life characters, slightly larger than life, and needing a big man in every sense of the word to play them. You were lined up to be Lincoln in Spielberg's movie as well, but as time passed, you became too old, and now it's going to be Daniel Day Lewis. So we know you're a talented actor, capable of impressive performances that dominate the screen, but that's a very small percentage of films out of a total that's approaching 100. And the most recent of those, Kinsey, was made in 2004.
Weigh them against the debit scale; the ones I've already mentioned, plus the dreadful Star Wars accident, Chloe (which no one saw), The A Team (an offence against cinema), not to mention earlier catastrophes like High Spirits and A Prayer For The Dying. I can see that there are films where you might have hoped for something better. Maybe you felt that Kingdom Of Heaven was an interesting film, except that it wasn't; perhaps you had high hopes of After.Life, but it died a death. I don't think the Batman films count as anything very serious.
So there you are, all craggy and tormented. It's obvious that comedy is not your forte, as you so admirably demonstrated in Life's Too Short with Ricky Gervais. Instead you seem to have reinvented yourself as an action hero, most recently fighting off wolves in The Grey. Fair enough. If you can get paid for being Mr Macho at your age, no one would argue with your right to take the work, but there is - as always - a quality control issue. Those big sad eyes of yours, in a face that expresses resignation and grief as strongly as anger and dynamism, are worthy of better things than slaughtering assorted Europeans simply because they happen to be in the same room as you and your weapon.Or wolves, come to that.
You are capable of greatness, but too often, you settle for triviality. The loss is ours as much as yours, and I feel sad to see an old lion tethered and tamed by mice.
