A 2020 Action Thriller directed by Mark Williams and starring Liam Neeson, Kate Walsh, Jeffrey Donovan, Jai Courtney, Anthony Ramos and Robert Patrick.
Professional bank robber Tom Dolan (Neeson) contacts the FBI hoping to make a deal to return all the money he has stolen ($9 million) in return for a reduced sentence so he can live an honest life with Annie (Walsh), the woman he has fallen in love with. However when two FBI agents, Nivens (Courtney) and Hall (Ramos) double cross Dolan and frame him for murder, he is forced to go on the run, clear his name and bring the two ruthless agents to justice.
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Tropes
- Black-and-Grey Morality: Tom himself acknowledges that he was wrong for stealing money that wasn’t his, but he calls out Nivens by pointing out that he did far worse by killing innocent people.
- Black Dude Dies First: Downplayed. While he isn't black, Ramon Hall is the only major character in the film who dies as a result of Redemption Equals Death.
- Bomb Disposal: Tom’s job during his time in the military. His experience with explosives ends up being a Chekhov's Skill.
- Cassandra Truth: Tom attempts to turn himself in to the FBI, confessing to being the In-and-Out Bandit. They don't believe him as several others claimed to be the In-and-Out Bandit in the past.
- Chekhov's Skill: Tom’s experience working with bombs in the military comes in handy both when he sets timed explosives inside Niven’s house and after the final shootout when he uses a unarmed bomb placed under an escaping Nivens car seat, forcing him to call the bomb squad and allowing Meyers to arrest him.
- Fatal Flaw: Greed. The agents who turn on Tom had the easiest way out ever and didn't take it. The easiest way would've been to take the entire three million and then turn in some of it since it's not like the agency could prove where the rest went since they had no idea. They would then use part of the three million to pay off Annie instead of attacking her and attempting to kill her—the average person would probably accept this bribe payment, after all—and then keep the rest. If they wanted the entire nine million, then they should've just played the entire thing straight with Tom, then bothered to consider killing him to keep the money once he revealed where the rest of it was. However, given the ambiguity of the cash itself, they could have rinsed and repeated by only taking some of the total nine million and insisting the rest was stolen. Speaking of which, that's another easier solution! They could have loaded up the three million, then pretended they got car-jacked and kept it all. That actually would've been even easier than surrendering some and paying off Annie, but it still would result in far less questions asked and didn't require anyone to be killed to keep things quiet. Tom would likely know that they did it, but he wouldn't be able to prove it and would just go right to jail. They could fabricate fake suspects with ease and be sitting pretty for the rest of their lives.
- Gentleman Thief: Tom qualifies, during his time as the In-and-Out Bandit all his bank robberies were well thought out and professionally done, he never hurt or killed anyone and never spent a single dollar of what he stole because he only performed the robberies for the thrills.
- I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: Liam Neeson and Kate Walsh were both previously in Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down The White House.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Killing off their boss and framing Tom for it is almost exactly what leads to the crooked FBI agents getting caught; the murder naturally gets another agent assigned to it, and the agent is no slouch. He starts piecing together almost immediately that something fishy is going on and Tom reaches out to him specifically to show him that the agents framed him for the murder. As outlined in Fatal Flaw and Too Dumb to Live, had they not killed their boss to cover it up, there is a chance they'd either have gotten to keep the stolen money or simply not have gotten killed as a result.
- Redemption Equals Death: Nivens' partner, Ramon Hall, is arguably the most sympathetic of the two because he wants to use the stolen money to support his family. So, when Tom convinces him to turn over the security footage showing him and Nivens stealing the money, he is immediately put down with a bullet by the latter.
- Redemption Quest: Tom wants to live an honest life with Annie, so he decides to contact the FBI so he can return all the money he has stolen.
- Stealing from Thieves: The twist being that two crooked FBI agents are the ones ripping off a former bank robber who is attempting to return the money he stole.
- Shout-Out: Also counting as an Actor Allusion, Tom, at one point in the movie, threatens Nivens over the phone.“Agent Nivens...I'm coming for you.”
- Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Agent Baker’s friend and partner Meyers pursues Tom after he is framed by Nivens for Baker’s death.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Tom explains to Annie that he has never killed anyone, not even in the during his time in the military. His record remains clean by the end of the movie as he never kills anyone.
- Too Dumb to Live: Tom goes about this entire situation as stupidly as possible. He makes a huge assumption that the woman he loves will still love him after finding out he was a career criminal, so the idea of turning himself in to get a lighter sentence so she can be with him is ridiculous. The film repeatedly brings up that this is the whole reason why he comes clean and it could turn out that he tells her the truth and she dumps him, which is what many women would do. He also doesn't fully consider the ramifications of only telling three people where the money is when they are federal agents, aka people whose literal job is to plant evidence or make bad men disappear. He should not have been meeting with them in person; he should have done everything over the phone and never told them where he was until they secured his stolen cash and then he should have walked into the precinct himself, not been escorted by them since it would give them a chance to kill him if they did decide to just steal it and leave.
- The FBI agents who decide to steal the money are morons. They are instantly undone by their own greed. If they had simply taken the entire three million dollars that was in the single pod that Tom told them about, they'd be set for life. They could still kill him if they felt like it, but it wouldn't be necessary since three million dollars, no matter how you split it, is enough to retire on if you live a reasonable life and it would've been more than enough to pay off Annie so she doesn't report the theft. They would also be able to hide it from anyone else by storing the money in various secure locations and only taking it in small chunks so that wouldn't tip off their bosses about a sudden higher income. It also made no sense to murder their boss and frame Tom for it. The chances of getting caught covering it up are astronomical when it's an FBI agent; these people are trained to uncover lies, so of course it would bring down way more heat than if they had found a way to lie about the entire situation.
- Vehicular Assault: Tom does this using a stolen van after escaping the cops, he spots Nivens and Hall and rams into their car followed by a quick shootout.
