The Marksman
Voltage Pictures | Release Date: January 15, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
44
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
19
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckJan 12, 2021
The movie displays the measured pacing and tautness marking many of Eastwood's films, and Neeson delivers an Eastwood-style performance while also revealing an emotional vulnerability that proves fully relatable. It's easy to see how his distinctive combination of mature rugged masculinity and Irish soulfulness has made him a perfect action hero for these complicated times. Read full review
65
UproxxVince ManciniJan 21, 2021
We know what we’re getting with this particular genre, and The Marksman, starring Neeson as a Texas rancher protecting a young boy from drug cartels, is a perfectly adequate exercise in providing it. If it lacks some of the panache and grindhouse appeal of previous installments, it also avoids the xenophobia and general mean-spiritedness. Read full review
60
SlashfilmEvan SaathoffJan 12, 2021
Ultimately, The Marksman hits its generic target. It is the kind of film you watch on accident more than seek out, but you probably won’t regret the accident. Read full review
58
Original-CinThom ErnstApr 1, 2021
The Marksman is a minor entry in the Liam Neeson Action Oeuvre, but it's unlikely to boost his genre status. Neeson puts in a valiant effort to give Hanson the edge of a man grown weary, not just by time but by the assumptions of his age and the disappointing belief that his country has let him down. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 23, 2021
For a movie called The Marksman, we rarely Jim actually demonstrating his marksmanship, as we’re left with Neeson again doing extended, hand-to-hand combat with a much younger, cockier foe who has no idea what he’s up against. Read full review
50
Rolling StoneK. Austin CollinsJan 19, 2021
Not a great movie, but courtesy of director Robert Lorenz, a lean, plausibly entertaining one with all the fixin’s and none of the extra flab of deep, incisive meaning. It’s a buddy movie, a cartel chase, a sentimental redemption story. It’s a comfort watch. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireJan 19, 2021
It’s time for your annual Liam Neesoning: that cinematic tradition in which the seasoned star plays a grizzled character with a particular set of skills, which come in handy to dispatch bad guys and rescue good ones. But this year’s entry in the subgenre, The Marksman, is particularly mediocre. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJan 17, 2021
As a bare-minimum action flick, The Marksman is mostly serviceable. Read full review
50
IGNMatt FowlerJan 16, 2021
The Marksman is perfectly watchable old man reckoning cinema, held together by good performances by Liam Neeson and young Jacob Perez, but it's ultimately not much more than an assembly line of non-surprises. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovJan 14, 2021
This is a more hardscrabble, beaten down version of Neeson’s iconic revengers than most of his action roles, with Hanson coming across as sympathetically appealing despite the cliched storyline. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJan 14, 2021
The Marksman proves itself to be the cinematic version of comfort food: satisfyingly familiar but full of starch and empty calories. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshJan 13, 2021
The film wants to speak to some kind of old school, lone-ranger American hero type (as portrayed by a man from Northern Ireland), but it’s too vague, shying away from any controversy, to say much at all. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 12, 2021
The Marksman is not awful. It’s not particularly good, either, but it’s not the disaster it should have been. Part of that has to do with the way Lorenz stages the action — well-choreographed and tense. Part of it has to do with Perez, who combines being adorable with a kind of hard-won wisdom beyond his years that makes for a completely winning character. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJan 12, 2021
If one were to diagnose a central problem with The Marksman, it’s that it isn’t actually a Clint Eastwood movie; it lacks the breathing room, the first-take nonchalance that always makes an attractive opposite to the Eastwoodian sense of purpose. Read full review
45
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeJan 12, 2021
Neeson has certainly starred in worse action vehicles than The Marksman, but rarely have they been more forgettable. Read full review
42
The Film StageConor O'DonnellJan 14, 2021
The Marksman could be compelling if it at all dared to be. It flirts with a few trains of thought that perhaps could have rescued it from its own indifference, but it commits to more mundane aspirations. Read full review
42
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJan 12, 2021
If superhero movies have unsurprisingly managed to outlive Stan Lee, a film as functional and flavorless as The Marksman suggests that Eastwoodism will die along with the man who inspired it. Read full review
40
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisJan 14, 2021
Predictable to a fault, the movie coasts pleasurably on Neeson’s seasoned, sad-sweet charisma — an asset that’s been tragically imprisoned in mopey-loner roles and generic action thrillers. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesMichael OrdoñaJan 12, 2021
The Marksman is more drama than thriller, but really more old-fashioned western than anything else — and a familiar one at that. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonJan 12, 2021
Although Neeson has a nice rapport with young costar Jacob Perez, there’s no escaping the formulaic storyline featuring uncomplicated good guys and abundantly villainous bad guys. Read full review
40
VarietyOwen GleibermanJan 12, 2021
The director, Robert Lorenz, stages the action with a convincing ebb and flow, but thanks to an undercooked script what happens in between is mostly boilerplate. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 17, 2021
A thriller that misses the mark, and not by a little. Read full review
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