Liam Neeson returns to what he does best in Mark Williams’ intense action thriller Blacklight, now streaming on Lionsgate Play. Blacklight finds Neeson playing tough guy Travis Block, a seasoned government operative-slash-fixer haunted by his shadowy past. Just when he’s planning to put the job behind him, Block stumbles on a top-secret FBI program, a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of power in the agency. To expose the truth and protect his loved ones, Block joins forces with a tenacious journalist (Emmy Raver-Lampman). Block’s pursuit of redemption leads him down a perilous path, a final act of penance before he puts it all behind him forever.
During an interview with Collider, Neeson shared what made him want to work on Blacklight and bring his character to life: “It was a chance to work with Mark Williams again… We’ve done three films together. It was a chance to work with my old pal Aidan Quinn, who plays my FBI boss. I like the script because it had thrills and spills, and there’s action and stuff on it, but it hints at unchecked power in the government. It investigates that in a very interesting way that we can apply to our own lives nowadays.”
Talking to Screen Rant, director Mark Williams talked about how he became interested in the story of Blacklight: “It was a script that I found that was actually set in 1971, about COINTELPRO, which was J. Edgar Hoover and the program that he had about counterintelligence. But I knew it was a little dated, and it wasn’t really gonna live up to current audiences, especially when you throw the action genre part of it into it… So I transplanted it to today, added some of the ‘thrills and spills,’ as Liam says, to the car chases and the gunfights and all that.”
Indulge in a high-stakes conspiracy thriller in Blacklight, now streaming on Lionsgate Play on PLDT Home and Smart.
