This is a movie about a widowed Marine who has a farm near the US border with Mexico. He normally calls immigration on illegal aliens he sees going across his land, but is shown to not have any hate in his heart, as he helps the injured, etc. One day, a mother and son come across the border while being chased by men from a Mexican drug cartel. Her husband had stolen money from them, and she prudently took all their money with her when she ran for the border. One wonders if they would have looked so hard for her if she had NOT taken all their money . In any event, the woman is shot and killed at the border by the cartel, but the boy and the Marine survive. She gives the Marine an address to send her son to in Chicago where they have relatives. Seriously? Chicago? She has no family in Calif, AZ, NM, Tx, but *Chicago* is where her only family is in the US??? C'mon, man!

Anyway, Liam Neeson is the star, and he shoots one of the cartel men at the border, and so the other three decide to chase him down in America. They then come across the border "legally" in a new Suburban using the help of corrupt border patrol agents. LOL, that scene was just bad, as the Mexican gang member gave the border patrol the passport of a white woman and he just sent him through. C'mon, I'm sure there's SOME type of tracking software that would link their car, images, etc. after the fact if not at the time. Why wouldn't you just use passports from some hispanic men? It seemed more like an attempt to score points against the border patrol than trying to make a realistic scene in a movie.

Anyway, Neeson decides to take the kid to Chicago, and starts driving across the country. The cartel members follow him along and kill people along the way, and I mean they kill EVERYBODY they come in contact with! Neeson's stepdaughter is a DEA agent, and they know what's going on, and know these men are following him killing people, etc., but do they call out a nationwide manhunt, etc.? Nope.

Neeson also gets pulled over in the middle of nowhere by a cop who it turns out is ALSO corrupt and working for the cartel! Some local guy in the middle of nowhere! They obviously get away from him, but by this point you really are just shaking your head.

When you start crying is when Neeson and the boy pull in to some random town to sleep for the night and pay with cash for a hotel and hide their truck off the road so it can't be seen. Neeson then opens his door of his room to take his dog out for a walk and sees the cartel guys questioning the manager at their hotel! OMG, one or two coincidences are bad enough, but the cartel guys stop at exactly the same random town and go to their exact hotel? Even overlooking Neeson opening his door at just the right time, it's really, obviously, too much to continue suspending disbelief about. At this point the tears are just flowing down your face when you realized you wasted $31 dollars on tickets, popcorn, and soda for something that's just so *bad* in every way. It's a very emotional moment in the movie. Oh, and the bad guys kill his dog in the hotel parking lot to show what bad guys they are. The cops, however, apparently either don't notice or don't care about the large dead dog in the hotel, and just leave the dead dog at the hotel so Neeson can go get him later and bury him. LOL, it's also a good thing that the cartel guys who have an almost psychic power tracking ability didn't have the sense to stick around as well to see if he went back for the dog he loved, but whatever. Anyway,

Leeson and the boy decide hotels paid for in cash aren't safe and they end up camping. At one of their campfires they burn all the money mom took from the cartel because it was cartel money and they wanted to prove a point, which, of course, is more important than Neeson paying off his farm that's being repossessed or the kid having some financial security. Eh, who needs money in the bank to live, he can always get a job selling drugs for the cartel.

They eventually end up on someone's farm and shoot it out with the cartel guys and win, of course. The strange part? The farmer never makes an appearance, there are no barking dogs, etc.! It would have been a great plot twist if they survived the cartel only to be shot by the farmer, a la "Night of the Living Dead", but no such luck.

Neeson gets the boy to Chicago and to his family, and they live in a nice, clean suburb of Chicago right next to the Cunninghams from "Happy Days", so no problems there. We also find out that Neeson was shot during his cartel battle, and rather than call 911 or go to a hospital he gets on a bus and rides around until he dies. So what, this otherwise healthy man's life isn't worth living? LOL, I'm sure the bus driver appreciated it, as who doesn't want to take their bus back at the end of their shift and explain to their boss why there's a dead body on their bus? Thanks, Liam, for making someone's day.

If I had to sum up the movie in general I'd say it's like a knockoff of Gran Torino, but if you want to see an "old man's spiritual redemption" movie Gran Torino was much better. This movie alternated between been there and bad. Remember, you were warned.