Credit: Netflix

Six months ago, Netflix viewers gave Liam Neeson‘s In the Land of Saints and Sinners a run on the charts. Any sensible viewer might have thought that was its streaming moment, done and dusted. Apparently not. The 2023 Irish thriller has returned to the fold and is trending at number seven on Netflix’s most-watched films, which makes this a good time to revisit why it stood out in the first place.

And a fair bit of that credit goes to Neeson himself. Remember what Taken did to his career in 2008? One particular set of skills later, Hollywood had found its older action star, and Neeson spent much of the next decade pointing guns at people.

Sadly, in between all those thrillers, it was easy to forget how much range he had. This was the actor from Schindler’s List, after all, and even during his action-heavy years, something like The Grey could still remind you that the man can act.

In between all that, thanks to director Robert Lorenz, who made sure to remind the world through In the Land of Saints and Sinners that Neeson is an actor first and an action star second.

Although it wasn’t Lorenz’s first time working with Neeson. We had The Marksman before that. In the Land of Saints and Sinners is a thriller with the bones of a western, except the story takes place in Ireland during the Troubles.

Neeson plays Finbar Murphy, a contract killer living in a small village in 1974 who has had enough of the job. He is just done, and can you blame him? Finbar wants something simpler, but of course, his past is not exactly going to shrug it off.

Then an IRA unit arrives in the area after a bombing in Belfast, led by Kerry Condon’s Doireann McCann, and guess who gets involved in the mess? The reason behind Finbar’s involvement is his discovery of what one member of the group has done. Oh, here we go.

And this is where it gets interesting, because Neeson has played enough dangerous men by now that just watching him threaten someone is not the whole attraction anymore. What gets you here is how little satisfaction Finbar seems to take from any of it.

Oh, and Neeson is not the only one stealing the gazes because the supporting cast is nothing but amazing here. You have Kerry Condon as Doireann and Jack Gleeson as Kevin, while Ciarán Hinds and Colm Meaney are in there too. Everyone gets enough to do that the characters feel like people rather than just names around Neeson.

Six months after its previous spell on the charts, In the Land of Saints and Sinners has managed to catch Netflix viewers’ attention all over again. For a thriller about a man trying to leave his old life behind, this second round of applause feels well earned.