The Commuter
Lionsgate | Release Date: January 12, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 44 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
22
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Village VoiceDanny KingJan 11, 2018
The director’s stylistic obsessions (harried close-ups of cell-service signal bars) and thematic integrity (witness the overworked 9-to-5 crowd banding together in solidarity) elevate the cheap-paperback plot without tipping the movie over into pomposity. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineCarson LundJan 12, 2018
The final optimism of the film's worldview lands with a conviction that's rare in contemporary Hollywood cinema—a resilience that's strong enough for Liam Neeson to ride out on. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJan 11, 2018
The man likes a scrap. But he's never had quite as ludicrous, and ludicrously entertaining, a fight as in The Commuter, which is essentially Liam Neeson versus a train. Read full review
75
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonJan 10, 2018
As the latest installment in what has become its own subgenre at this point, The Commuter serves as a fine example of the kind of tightly-coiled thriller that Neeson and Collet-Serra can do together in their sleep. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 10, 2018
It weds all the winning aspects of the Neeson formula to a ticking-clock plot, full of tense moments and gripping sequences. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJan 10, 2018
The Commuter’s script may not be an exercise in fool-proof logic (the actual plot makes almost no sense in retrospect), but its politics are consistent — a rare quality for a contemporary thriller. Read full review
75
The Film StageJordan RaupJan 10, 2018
If Collet-Serra put Neeson on a merry-go-round and added some danger, I’d gladly show up. Read full review
71
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpJan 14, 2018
The Commuter isn’t a tough puzzle to solve, and it veers closely to being obvious at times. But easy, unsubtle, unabashedly masculine action films don’t need nuance as long as they’re this much of a goofy pleasure to watch. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekJan 15, 2018
As The Commuter rattles on, the plot becomes more and more implausible — though again, believability isn’t what we’ve signed on for here. Read full review
70
The AtlanticDavid SimsJan 12, 2018
It’s almost charming watching the film find various ways to use the limited confines of a suburban commuter train in service of a nervy action thriller. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJan 11, 2018
While it doesn't pay to think too hard about the plot, after four of these films, director Collet-Serra, shooting here on a 30-ton set put together from authentic discarded railroad scrap, is an expert, so to speak, at making this kind of train run on time. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerDec 29, 2017
It's a certified B-movie without superheroes or interplanetary travel, drawing its power from a whodunit, race-against-the-clock scenario that plays as if The Lady Vanishes and Strangers on a Train were chopped up and tossed into the blender along with a slab of CGI and a full bottle of Dexedrine. Read full review
67
The PlaylistWill AshtonJan 11, 2018
With a filmography as curiously inconsistent as Collet-Serra’s, The Commuter is a wild, mostly entertaining combination of the director’s general bag of tricks. It’s over-the-top and fun, even if in its own fleeting way, and by the time you reached your location, you don’t feel swindled. Read full review
65
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeDec 29, 2017
Collet-Serra’s fourth team-up with Neeson, The Commuter, represents neither man’s finest work, but at its best, it suggests the snap and fun they’ve brought us before. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJan 11, 2018
It’s just sad to see the always interesting Farmiga wasted in such a hackneyed role. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 11, 2018
In the doldrums of January, the movie pulls out every trick in the suspense-thriller book to keep us grinning at each new absurdity. Silly? You bet. Irresistible? Totally. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 11, 2018
One of those movies with good things going in one direction, and cheesy things going in the other. The ever-valuable Farmiga is a faceless voice after her sole on-screen appearance, and director Collet-Serra’s frantic, hand-held technique ensures that every supporting player looks as guilty as possible. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTom RussoJan 10, 2018
Neeson’s financially strapped character might vent even more convincingly if he didn’t somehow still have a BMW parked back at the depot, but we’re on board with him all the same. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 9, 2018
An action picture whose aging hero we care about and root for, a thriller with tension and style, a B-movie Hitchcock would have been happy to call his own. Read full review
60
Total FilmNeil SmithJan 18, 2018
A solid if far-fetched thriller that still entertains, even as it goes off the rails. Read full review
60
UproxxMike RyanJan 17, 2018
Most of The Commuter is a pretty fun ride. Read full review
60
EmpireDavid HughesJan 16, 2018
A sub-Hitchcockian thriller with enough forward momentum to thunder over its many plot holes, The Commuter is a surprisingly enjoyable if instantly forgettable crowd-pleaser that takes the audience for a ride — in more ways than one. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 12, 2018
Yet the nonsense content, being pure, is liberating, and allows us to savor all the machinery as machinery: the train, the plot, the pitch-imperfect dialogue, the huffing-puffing fights, the ridiculous stunts and, yes, the climactic train wreck. Here’s how filmmakers can fill screens when they don’t have a film to make. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaJan 12, 2018
This isn’t to say that the humans in The Commuter act anything like real people; the train is the most realistic performer here, but you could do a lot worse. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 11, 2018
The Commuter doesn’t stand above or below most of Neeson’s action-hero fare. But you dependably get what you pay for. Read full review
60
The GuardianSteve RoseJan 10, 2018
Perhaps you can’t ask too much from a modest, mid-range crowd-pleaser like this, but the experience ends up something like a commuter service itself: you know where it’s going and it gets you there perfectly well, but in a few years’ time you’d be hard pressed to distinguish it from dozens of similar journeys. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe DziemianowiczJan 10, 2018
As it speeds along, the film delivers its share of popcorn-style entertainment, curves and thrills. But it stalls due to plot holes and murky storytelling, willful inaccuracies (like an invented Upper East side train station), wasted talent and conductor’s cap tips to better railway-based movies like “Strangers on a Train,” “The Fugitive” and “Unstoppable.” Read full review
60
VarietyGuy LodgeDec 29, 2017
The Commuter’s breakneck incoherence — not to mention a generally dour demeanor, shorter on incidental humor than most of the helmer’s work — makes it a notch less fun than those previous ex-trash-aganzas. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJan 15, 2018
Peppered with implausibilities and foul-smelling red herrings, The Commuter downshifts from a solid cat-and-mouse joyride to a ridiculous howler, insulting its audience’s patience and intelligence at every turn. Read full review
55
IGNScott ColluraJan 11, 2018
Liam Neeson is back with The Commuter, though viewers may wind up wishing they bought a ticket to a different train. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedJan 16, 2018
The whole thing has a certain “been there already” deja vu that dilutes the movie’s intended wow factor. Everything else in The Commuter is a yawn. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 12, 2018
The Commuter falls into line with Neeson’s other high-octane, low-intelligence efforts and part of the reason it works (to the degree that it works) is because of the sincerity with which the actor attacks the part. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 11, 2018
It takes too long for The Commuter to build a head of steam but it’s medium speed ahead after that. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJake CoyleJan 11, 2018
Collet-Serra’s genre mechanics, stylized and sober, are efficient. His trains run on time, even if — especially in The Commuter — a rush-hour’s worth of implausibility eventually wrecks the thrill. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJan 11, 2018
Frustratingly not-quite-there from start to finish. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJan 10, 2018
The Commuter is exactly the kind of post-"Taken" aging-action-star part that Neeson could do in his sleep, and while he’s not exactly dozing through the script, it lacks his normal grizzled fire and drive. Read full review
50
Screen DailySarah WardDec 29, 2017
What The Commuter lacks in nuance, depth, surprises, logic and serviceable dialogue...it can’t make up for in its effective single-location tension or well-choreographed action, though both rank among the film’s modest highlights. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichDec 29, 2017
This may be a forgettable movie about the forgotten man — a blue-collar morality play disguised as a very contrived hostage crisis — but at least it’s shlock with something on its mind. Read full review
40
SlateSam AdamsJan 12, 2018
The Commuter has nothing so heady as the plight of the forgotten man on its mind. The movie, whose screenplay is credited to Byron Willinger, Philip de Blasi, and Ryan Engle, is flagrantly, even willfully silly, juiced with such corny audacity it frequently made me laugh out loud. Read full review
40
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJan 11, 2018
It’s not even very good as a genre exercise, and can’t always keep track of which genre muscles it wants to flex. For a while it’s a locked-room mystery. Then it’s a runaway-train thriller. Read full review
40
Time OutTrevor JohnstonJan 10, 2018
It’s a zingy set-up but just as quickly, it hits the skids. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 11, 2018
Virtually every big twist and every major reveal in The Commuter is telegraphed well in advance, and from the moment the train leaves the station and the story really begins to kick into gear, we find ourselves rolling our eyes about every 10 minutes. Read full review
38
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenJan 11, 2018
[Neeson's] impressive physicality, (a tower among men), his rumbly basso-profundo voice and his impressive demeanor give him a natural gravity that allows him to rise above the most absurd material. And he does exactly that in The Commuter. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJan 10, 2018
The story (by Byron Willinger, Philip de Blasi and Ryan Engle) does not exist to serve the needs of logic, but those of Neeson, who, as has become his habit in this sort of thing, delivers, at minimum, a modicum of guilty pleasure as the middle-aged, tender-but-tough Everyman in a tight spot. Read full review
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