‘Blacklight’ refers to something that is invisible until someone takes the necessary steps to reveal it — in this case, a carefully concealed conspiracy.
“The truth will set you free” is an old adage that many look to when faced with difficult decisions. The reasons to choose honesty can range from relieving a guilty conscience to redirecting misplaced blame to ensuring something that shouldn’t be repeated isn’t to simply being the right thing to do. All of these can be powerful motivators, but there may also be many things standing in opposition to a confession. In the end, one must weigh their options and select the route with which they can live. In Blacklight, someone’s attempts to come clean are blocked at every turn.
Travis Block (Liam Neeson) is a government fixer, spending a long career getting FBI agents and anyone else he’s assigned to out of hot water. He works off the books and reports directly to FBI Director Gabriel Robinson (Aidan Quinn), an old war buddy. When Travis is told to collect Dusty Crane (Taylor John Smith) from a local holding cell, he has no idea what secrets the young undercover agent is struggling to keep. As Travis digs deeper into Dusty’s allegations of the misuse of government powers and the deaths of innocent U.S. citizens, he must team up with ambitious journalist Mira Jones (Emmy Raver-Lampman) to piece it all together and find the truth.
Unlike some of his contemporaries, Neeson decided to launch his action movie career in his 50’s with 2008’s Taken. Since then, the film’s main character has become rather iconic and created (limited) expectations for all of Neeson’s other action roles — i.e., he’s assumed to have a particular set of skills that he’ll use to find the culprit and rescue the hostage. This story is slightly different as Travis does have a special set of skills, but he must use them to liberate information rather than a detained person. Dusty provides the starting point, but it’s up to Travis to find the truth — a task he accepts and approaches with a by-any-means-necessary attitude.
The film is a fairly straightforward investigative thriller livened up with the occasional shootout as the powers at risk try to prevent any damaging new discoveries. Audiences know exactly what they’ll find once the basics are revealed — it’s just a matter of how many people will die in the process of bringing the truth to light. Quinn has had a varied career, but he instils Gabe with a coldness that makes him seem capable of anything. Meanwhile, the characters that surround him who are just “doing as they’re ordered” are left to either internalize that icy demeanour or realize what they’re being told to do is wrong. Even though director Mark Williams has worked previously with Neeson, he isn’t playing exactly the same personality, though there are inevitably similarities. Instead, he allows the revelations and his attachment to his granddaughter to humanize Travis and position him in contrast with Gabe. In the meantime, Smith appears genuinely determined, while Raver-Lampman brings a respectable level of resolve and drive to her character.
This is a movie not trying to defy expectations, but deliver an adequate tale of espionage and whistleblowing that’s worth watching if viewers have any interest in any of the actors involved.
Director: Mark Williams
Starring: Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn and Emmy Raver-Lampman
