This article is about Liam Neeson. It’ll get there, I promise. First, though, 600 words about some babies:
Not that long ago, I was on a plane flying from Houston to Los Angeles. I was sitting in coach, and so that means each row was made up of three seats: an aisle seat (the overall best location because it’s the one where you’re the most free), a middle seat (the worst seat, always), and a window seat (a good seat only if it’s a late flight and you want to sleep). I was in the window seat. Sitting next to me was this old woman, and sitting next to her was a young woman.
An hour or so into the three-hour trip, everything was smooth and fine and typical. It was a regular, normal flight. Until, suddenly, it wasn’t. In the row behind us was a dad and his three children, two of whom were babies (I’m assuming they were twins, but I can’t say for certain). I don’t know what it was that first caused it, but one of the babies started crying. Shortly after that, the other one started crying, too. No matter what the dad tried, he couldn’t get them to stop. He tried the thing where you bounce the baby gently as you hold her. Nothing. He tried the thing where you pat the baby on the butt a bit as you rock her. Nothing. He tried giving the babies pacifiers, bottles, and his finger to gum at. He tried changing them. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
A flight attendant came over and asked if the mom was also on the flight. “Perhaps she’s sitting in a different section of the plane?” she asked, and the implication was clear: If the mom is here, go give the babies to her, because you clearly are not capable of handling this situation. He said that he was alone, and that he wasn’t sure what else to do. And so he just sat there, defeated but still trying, and the babies just cried and cried and cried. It was, by all measures, a horrible time to be him.
But so: Does it bother you when babies cry? It doesn’t really bother me. If a baby is crying and a parent is trying to soothe her but she won’t stop crying, then that’s just a thing that has to be happening for a while. It’s the universe’s plan, truly. You can’t get mad at the baby for crying because she’s just a baby, and you can’t get mad at the parent because, I mean, whatever. Babies cry. It’s what they do. Getting mad at a parent whose baby is crying is like getting mad at someone who was carrying a cake and tripped and fell down and dropped the cake and some of the frosting got on your pant leg. They weren’t planning for that shit to happen. It just happened.
That is not, however, how the old woman sitting next me to felt. After several minutes of the babies crying, she unbuckled her seatbelt (!), stood up (!!), turned around (!!!), and began to loudly fuss at the man (!!!!). They got into this big argument (the best part was she said that babies didn’t need to fly, which struck me as unreasonable but kind of funny; he said he hoped that every flight she was ever on forever had a crying baby on it, which also struck me as unreasonable but kind of funny). It was this whole big thing. An event, really.
And I mention it because—and buckle up, because this is about to be a leap—if you asked, say, five planes’ worth of (nonracist) people to make a list of who they would not want on their plane, I would guess that a sizable portion of them would list “crying baby” at the top or somewhere near the top. But do you know who is worse than every crying baby on a plane (or seat kicker on a plane, or sick person on a plane, or smelly person on a plane)?
Liam Neeson on a plane.
Liam Neeson is very bad at being on a plane. He’s the worst at it, maybe. He was on a plane in 2011’s The Grey, and the plane crashed and people died. (The ones who didn’t die in the crash were eaten by wolves, which I’m not sure is worse than dying in a plane crash or better than dying in a plane crash.) (Probably worse.) (It just seems like you’d die faster in a plane crash than you would by wolves chewing on you.) He was on a plane in 2014’s Non-Stop, and it was taken over by terrorists and people died. (His one job in that movie was to make sure it did not get taken over by terrorists and that nobody died, FYI.)
There actually aren’t many modes of transportation that Liam Neeson isn’t bad at using, turns out. His new movie, The Commuter, is out now, and in that movie he’s on a train, and guess what happens: Without spoiling anything, I can tell you that people die on the train.
He rode a horse in 2014’s A Million Ways to Die in the West and people died. (He ended up getting killed by Seth MacFarlane in that movie, which is definitely worse than getting eaten by wolves.) The final action scene in 2008’s Taken depicts Liam Neeson killing a bunch of people on a boat, and an early scene in Taken is of him beating up a guy in a taxi and the guy gets out of the taxi and is eventually run over and killed. He drove a car in 2011’s Unknown and people died. He went for a walk in 2014’s A Walk Among the Tombstones and people died, and he went for a run in 2015’s Run All Night because I guess he wanted people to die faster than he walked. He rode a monorail (lol) in 2005’s Batman Begins while he was trying to orchestrate an entire city dying (and ended up dying himself). Among other vehicles, he was in a tank and flew a helicopter in 2010’s The A-Team and people died. He was in submarine that was literally called “The Widowmaker” in 2002’s K-19: The Widowmaker and—surprise!—widows were made. He was in a spaceship in 1999’s Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and people died (including himself). He commanded a battleship in 2012’s Battleship and people died.
There’s this movie from 1988 called The Dead Pool. Liam Neeson plays a director in it. One of the stars of a movie he’s directing is found dead in an RV on set, and I think given all we know about Neeson and transportation now, it’s fair to say that the death was at least partially attributable to him.
There’s a part in 1990’s Darkman where he rides on top of an 18-wheeler and people die.
Real quick, a list to recap:
- Liam Neeson was on a train: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was on a plane: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was in a car: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was on a horse: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was on a boat: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was in a taxi: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson went for a walk: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson went for a run: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was in a tank: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was in a helicopter: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was in a spaceship: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was in a monorail: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was in a submarine: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was on a naval battleship: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was near an RV: one or more persons died.
- Liam Neeson was on top of an 18-wheeler: one or more persons died.
Did he ride in a chariot in 2012’s Wrath of the Titans? A rickshaw in 2016’s Silence? A bus in 1987’s Suspect? A trolley in 2000’s Gun Shy? A ferry in something? A barge in something? A tram in something?
I’m sure I’ve missed something somewhere.
The point remains: Liam Neeson is bad at transportation.
