Netflix’s ‘The Ice Road’ Isn’t the Best Liam Neeson Movie, But It Is Comfortingly Familiar

The Ice Road on Netflix is not a good movie. It’s doubtful that anyone expects that The Ice Road on Netflix is a good movie. And yet, many, many people will tune into The Ice Road on Netflix—which began streaming today—simply because, no matter how many times he does it, there is something inexplicably soothing about watching Liam Neeson save people.

Neeson has saved a lot of people over the years. He saves his 17-year-old daughter from Albanian smugglers in 2008’s Taken, perhaps his most memorable action role. (“I have a very particular set of skills.”) He saves his son from the mafia in 2015’s Run All Night. He saves his fellow oil workers from getting eaten by wolves in 2011’s The Grey. He saves the passengers on a plane in 2014’s Non-Stop, and then he saves the passengers on a train in 2018’s The Commuter. Earlier this year, he saved an immigrant mother and her son from the drug cartel in The Marksman. And now, today, he will save miners who are trapped underground in The Ice Road.

Written and directed by Jonathan Hensleigh, The Ice Road is predictable in every sense of the word. Neeson’s character, Mike (he doesn’t even get a last name), is a truck driver who looks after his brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas), a mechanic who has a language disorder known as aphasia. After Mike gets them both fired for beating up a guy who makes fun of his brother, he signs them up for a high-risk, high-reward job driving a rig across “the ice road”—literally a frozen lake that could break at any moment—to deliver wellheads that are needed to rescue miners trapped underground.

There’s no need to dwell on the logistics of the plot. The movie certainly doesn’t. All things considered—story, acting, special effects—The Ice Road is a lesser Liam Neeson movie, unlikely to have a significant cultural impact. If you’re looking forward to a Neeson team-up with fellow action star Laurence Fishburne, don’t get too hyped—Fishburne disappears after about 15 minutes of screentime. And yet, even as Neeson more or less phoned it in, I still found myself comforted by the familiar beats of the narrative.

No matter his role and no matter his age, Neeson exudes confidence and competence. Liam Neeson will always save you. There’s a sense that somebody you trust is in charge, someone capable has it handled, a licensed professional is driving the bus (or semi-truck). At one point in The Ice Road, Neeson’s on-screen brother falls through the ice to his almost-certain death, but Neeson, through the power of being Liam Neeson, does the impossible and saves him. It really doesn’t feel like a spoiler to say: Of course Neeson gets to the miners in time, despite the many, many obstacles in his way. Of course he saves the day! He’s Liam freakin’ Neeson!

Technically, The Ice Road is an action thriller, but I have a feeling that most viewers tuning in won’t be on the edge of their seat. Instead, they will be lulled into a reassuring sense of security, an almost zen-like state, of watching Neeson expertly handle increasingly arduous challenges over the course of two hours. Is watching a Liam Neeson movie the same thing as seeking professional help for anxiety disorder? Absolutely not. But it’s certainly a lot cheaper!

Maybe this is why it doesn’t matter to Neeson fans that he’s churning out slight variations on the same movie, year after year. It doesn’t matter if the story is cheesy, or the acting is lacking, or the plot is predictable. Honestly, all of those things are part of the appeal. What matters is that Liam Neeson is saving people. And as long as Liam Neeson is saving people, all is right with the world.

Watch The Ice Road on Netflix