{"id":79240,"date":"2026-02-18T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T19:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/?p=79240"},"modified":"2026-02-16T22:09:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T11:39:22","slug":"movie-review-in-the-land-of-saints-sinners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/2026\/02\/18\/movie-review-in-the-land-of-saints-sinners\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review – In The Land of Saints & Sinners"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Principal Cast : <\/strong>Liam Neeson, Kerry Condon, Jack Gleeson, Ciaran Hinds, Sarah Greene, Colm Meany, Desmond Eastwood, Niamh Cusack, Conor MacNeill, Seamus O’Hara, Mark O’Regan, Valentine Olukogo, Michelle Gleeson, Conor Hamill, Anne Brogan.
\nSynopsis:<\/strong> A disillusioned hitman comes out of retirement for one last job when an IRA bomber on the run from the law arrives in his sleepy Irish village.<\/h3>\n

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The last two decades have been spent idly wondering who plays the grizzled man-of-many-hidden-talents trope better: Jason Statham or Liam Neeson. Given both actors have spent the better part of their careers carving out a niche playing essentially the same character in every film they make, it\u2019s little wonder they\u2019ve become almost synonymous with the action-thriller subgenre. While Neeson\u2019s lead role in In the Land of Saints and Sinners<\/em>, his second with director Robert Lorenz following The Marksman<\/em>, won\u2019t be touted among the greatest of his works, it\u2019s still a thoroughly enjoyable, workmanlike shooter with bursts of violence and moments of quiet horror before the bang.<\/p>\n

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Set in Northern Ireland in the mid-1970s, against the backdrop of IRA violence prevalent in the region at the time, Neeson plays semi-retired contract killer Finbar Murphy, a war veteran looking to hang up his gun. He is friendly with the local Garda, Vinnie (Ciaran Hinds), and several of the village folk, while working for crime boss Robert McQue (Colm Meaney). After a deadly encounter with fugitive IRA bomber Curtis June (Desmond Eastwood), Finbar finds himself firmly in the sights of the young man\u2019s vengeful older sister, Doireann (Kerry Condon), and her associates, who begin tracking him down to exact retribution. Finbar, allied with younger fellow contract killer Kevin (Jack Gleeson), attempts to stave off wanton violence by setting up a rendezvous in town that will unravel his hidden identity and place the people he cares about in grave danger.<\/p>\n

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ITLOSAS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the Land of Saints and Sinners<\/em> is conspicuously low-key, from its windswept, craggy Irish landscapes and bristling score by The Baldenweg Siblings \u2014 Diego, Nora and Lionel \u2014 through to its thick dialects and esoteric ensemble character work. It\u2019s as Irish as they come, and spending contemplative time with Neeson, Condon and a cast this good is a genuine pleasure. As an anglophile, it pleases me that a film like this exists, and thankfully, while it sticks rigidly to the ageing hitman-looking-for-redemption archetype, it avoids many of the pitfalls of the modern Hollywood blockbuster. Sure, there\u2019s violence and bloodshed, and a truckload of good old-fashioned profanity, but the film\u2019s quieter, more sombre tone \u2014 and Neeson\u2019s grizzled, gruff countenance dominating the screen \u2014 makes it feel like wearing a comfortable old jacket: warm and bespoke.<\/p>\n

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As much as I didn\u2019t enjoy The Marksman<\/em><\/a> \u2014 and I really<\/em> didn\u2019t think much of that Texas-set thriller \u2014 Robert Lorenz\u2019s second collaboration with Neeson is a far more circumspect and evocative affair. Neeson\u2019s natural Irish brogue and effortless screen charisma simply work<\/em> here, alongside old friend Ciaran Hinds as a circumspect local copper. With such solid casting backing up a rich vein of story potential, Lorenz\u2019s job feels half done before he even steps onto the set. Tom Stern\u2019s crisp photography of the County Donegal locations is breathtaking and places the viewer squarely inside the story, while the attention to period detail from production designer Derek Wallace and costume designer Leonie Prendergast ensures the illusion of time and place is never broken. There\u2019s a wonderful symmetry at play \u2014 the suspension of disbelief required for small-town Irish village life sitting at odds with Finbar and Kevin\u2019s chosen professions \u2014 and that clash of ideology within this bucolic setting is both charming and quietly disarming.<\/p>\n

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The screenplay by Mark Michael McNally and Terry Loane is unremarkable in its profundity and simplicity, rarely treading ground that feels fresh or somehow different from the rest of Neeson\u2019s modern oeuvre. However, Lorenz and Neeson\u2019s careful build-up of tension \u2014 a slow burn of needling menace and imminent danger \u2014 proves propulsive enough thanks to the dynamism of the location and the inherent violence we\u2019re primed to expect. When that violence arrives, it\u2019s quick, bloody and jarring, albeit not without flashes of shocking sadness. Neeson does his best with the subtleties, while returning screen presence Jack Gleeson \u2014 the ill-fated Joffrey from Game of Thrones<\/em> \u2014 is wonderfully wry as Kevin, Finbar\u2019s younger upstart competitor-turned-associate. Kerry Condon\u2019s ferociously violent Doireann is all spittle and venom, steely-eyed resolve mixed with an almost fanatical love of country, and much of the film\u2019s excitable frisson comes from watching her move ever closer to tracking Finbar down and decimating anyone in her way. Condon doesn\u2019t hold back, though she\u2019s canny enough never to tip into outright melodrama. If I have one chief criticism, it\u2019s that the film doesn\u2019t delve deeply into her motivations for joining the IRA \u2014 \u201cfighting for our country\u201d could mean almost anything these days. If you\u2019re of a certain age it carries more weight, but the film doesn\u2019t quite do the work for younger viewers. Had it shaped her into a more empathetic antagonist rather than the somewhat broad villain she occasionally resembles, it might have provided a sharper counterpoint to Finbar\u2019s redemptive arc. That said, Condon is a firecracker here, and the eventual comeuppance \u2014 and it does arrive \u2014 is dour, perhaps the most dispiriting element of the whole affair.<\/p>\n

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In the Land of Saints and Sinners<\/em> is a quietly beautiful elegy for violence set against legitimate natural splendour. I\u2019d be hard-pressed to call it an all-time classic, but it is undeniably a thoroughly enjoyable Irish-set thriller. The cast are uniformly excellent, the plot \u2014 when stripped of lush landscapes and tremendous accents \u2014 is fairly generic, and Lorenz\u2019s direction is stately, dynamic and unhurried, allowing the film to linger softly with the viewer afterwards. I can understand why some might baulk at its leisurely pace and rural setting, but if you lean into its rhythms and embrace its modest ambitions, there\u2019s a film here well worth your time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Principal Cast : Liam Neeson, Kerry Condon, Jack Gleeson, Ciaran Hinds, Sarah Greene, Colm Meany,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48482,"featured_media":79242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-review"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX.jpg",1920,1080,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-500x280.jpg",500,280,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-660x365.jpg",660,365,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-840x840.jpg",640,640,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX.jpg",1920,1080,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-1024x576.jpg",1024,576,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-540x340.jpg",540,340,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-24x24.jpg",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-96x96.jpg",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"sow-carousel-default":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4kmNLwmVeT3xMciSRefE6SCi2hX-272x182.jpg",272,182,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Rodney Twelftree","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/author\/rodney\/"},"category_info":"Movie Review<\/a>","tag_info":"Movie Review","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48482"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79240"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79253,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79240\/revisions\/79253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}