Samuel Goldwyn Films released the first trailer for The Mongoose on Wednesday, giving audiences their first look at Liam Neeson’s latest action thriller roughly three months ahead of its October 30 theatrical release, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
What the trailer shows
Neeson plays Ryan “Fang” Flanagan, a decorated war veteran wrongly accused of murdering his ex-wife’s current partner. The footage opens with Flanagan already on the run, his ex-wife pleading with him to turn himself in, before cutting back to the incident that put him there: Flanagan discovering his ex had been abused by her partner, and confronting the man himself, according to ComingSoon.net. From there, the trailer follows Flanagan behind the wheel of a 1965 Shelby Cobra GT350, leading Texas Highway Patrol on a televised, cross-country car chase. The official synopsis describes him as a war hero with nothing left to lose, aided by his brothers in arms and cheered on by a sympathetic public.
Who else is in it
Marisa Tomei plays Tara, Flanagan’s ex-wife, and Ving Rhames plays Tanker, a fellow combat veteran helping Flanagan stay ahead of the law. Michael Chiklis plays Pope, the police chief leading the pursuit. Marcus Thomas and Maurice Marvel Meredith round out the cast, according to MovieWeb.
A directorial debut two decades in the making
The Mongoose marks the first film directed by Mark Vanselow, who has spent more than 20 films working as Neeson’s stunt double and coordinator, including entries in the Taken franchise, The Commuter, Honest Thief, The Marksman, The Ice Road, and The Naked Gun. The screenplay comes from Thompson Evans, and the film was shot in Australia, standing in for Afghanistan, Arkansas, and Texas, according to FirstShowing.net. Al Corley, Bart Rosenblatt, and Eugene Musso produced the film, which is financed by Code Entertainment and Jupiter Peak Productions.
Neeson keeps “retiring” and keeps coming back
The Mongoose continues a pattern that’s become something of a running joke around Neeson’s career: he’s said publicly on at least three separate occasions that he intended to step away from action films, only to keep making them, according to Action-Flix.com. This marks Neeson’s second collaboration with Samuel Goldwyn Films this year, following his work on the sci-fi comedy Cold Storage.
A second Neeson thriller is coming even sooner
The Mongoose isn’t the only action film Neeson has arriving this fall. His previously delayed thriller The Fix, formerly titled Hotel Tehran, is set to open September 11 — about six weeks before The Mongoose. That film pairs Neeson with Zachary Levi as former CIA operatives sent into Iran on a rescue mission after an earlier operation in Afghanistan goes wrong, according to Yahoo Entertainment.
