With less than thirty hours to save the twenty-six excavators trapped in a diamond mine cave-in, it’s up to Mike (Liam Neeson) and five other truckers to undertake a suicide mission by transporting, across the coldest region of Canada, three trucks containing the wellhead needed to save the day. Chances are you’ll be waging jeers at this ruination of The Wages of Fear, even though laughter was not the filmmaker’s intent. Mike’s brother and constant companion Gurty (Marcus Thomas) is an Iraq vet (and mechanic savant) who suffers from aphasia. It’s a language disorder that causes mean-spirited co-workers to collapse under the weight of Mike’s fist for referring to his younger sibling as a “retard.” It’s one thing to use Gurty as a means of evoking sympathy, but did they have to stoop so low as to make a mentally disabled character the most perceptive one in the bunch? Who will be the first driver to be dunked in the deep? (Congrats if you guessed the actor picking up the second biggest paycheck.) Another Netflix production that would have felt right at home at Cannon Films in the 1980s. Directed by Jonathan Hensleigh, his first film since Kill the Irishman. With: Laurence Fishburn and Amber Midthunder in the role generally reserved for Aubrey Plaza. (2021) — Scott Marks
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