Take this Blacklight Quiz to find out which character you are. We update the quiz regularly and it’s the most accurate among the other quizzes.
Another season, another “Liam Neeson Has Talent” film. Some of his “Taken” sequels (the most recent, “Taken 3,” was released in 2014, how time flies) have been reasonably clever and even cinematically worthwhile on a surprising level (see, for example, 2019’s “Cold Pursuit”). “Blacklight” by Mark Williams, on the other hand, isn’t one of them.
The film begins with a scene of a young, charismatic brunette female rousing the working class at a rally in Washington, D.C. They have banners with her name, Sofia Flores, on them. (Mal Jarnson is the actor who plays her.) She’s obviously modeled after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, based on the way she’s speaking here. Taylor John Smith plays her boyfriend, a wide-eyed guy in the crowd who fixes his baby blues on her adoringly (in this scene and others looking more like a digital animation than a live person for some reason). So far, so good. However, later that night, after the rally, a shady town car driver impersonates a jammed passenger-side door, forcing Sofia to exit the car driver’s side, where she is promptly plowed down by an SUV. Whose driver exchanges a meaningful glance with the driver of the town car?
Blacklight Quiz
It should not be necessary to invoke former Congresswoman Gabbie Giffords to demonstrate why this type of “torn from the headlines” (or whatever it is) scenario opportunism is heinous. It casts a pall over the rest of the film, which wouldn’t have had much going for it even if this alpha-male posturing hadn’t occurred. Also, you must try to play this Blacklight quiz.
Neeson plays Travis Block (writer Nick May must have read a screenwriting manual that said giving your violent hero Travis Bickle’s initials is a good luck charm of sorts), an undercover FBI guy who specializes in getting regular undercover agents out of jams. We first see him racing to a redneck-white supremacist conclave near Washington, DC to save an in-too-deep operative. He accomplishes this through a combination of legerdemain, propane, and a flare. “I appreciate you for making it happen,” FBI Director Gabriel Robinson (Aidan Quinn, channeling Martin Sheen’s Josiah Bartlet Gone Bad) tells Travis, who is also his best friend, in his buddy’s office. Also, you will find out which character are you in this quiz.
About the quiz
But, at this late stage in life, Travis’s greatest desire is to spend quality time with his granddaughter, which his actual daughter opposes. Travis’ paranoia isn’t good for the tot, she complains, just as the tot opens grandpa’s birthday present: a flashlight with a built-in taser. In the meantime, Smith’s character is named Dusty, and he, too, is an undercover agent. One who is about to tell a crusading journalist (Emmy Raver-Lampman) about his — and the bureau’s — role in Flores’ assassination.
Block doesn’t believe it at first—even after decades on the job, he believes the establishment is fundamentally thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Of course, the scales fall from his eyes soon after. And, eventually, he will have to confront the man who, etcetera, etcetera.
The action set pieces are merely decorative. I suppose it’s commendable that they don’t rise to the level of chaos cinema, but they’re so lifeless that you might find yourself wishing they did. And, aside from the obvious opportunism, the script is dismally threadbare. Robinson’s justifications for his illegal and evil actions do not exist; they simply are. Donnie, the villainous forces in 1970s paranoia classics like “Three Days of the Condor” and “The Parallax View” had an ethos.
For more personality quizzes check this: New York Quiz
