Liam Neeson plays a Boston mob enforcer with memory problems in his latest tough-guy tale, “Absolution.” The 72-year-old actor has said that he’s looking to wind down the action career that kicked off in 2008 with “Taken,” and it feels like with each new entry that he’s starting to say goodbye to his own particular subgenre. “Absolution” makes it easy.

Scripted by Tony Gayton, “Absolution” marks a reunion for Neeson with his “Cold Pursuit” director Hans Petter Moland. But while that film, about a snowplow driver seeking revenge for his son’s death, had a certain bonkers, Coen brothers-esque dark comedic energy, “Absolution” is more of a dirge, a funereal B-movie riff on Christopher Nolan’s “Memento,” that tries to be “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” but ends up falling short.

Neeson’s mustachioed heavy has been knocked around a time or two in his life, in the boxing ring and while collecting debts for his longtime boss (Ron Perlman), and now the boss’ son (Daniel Diemer). He’s losing his grip — he can’t remember his phone number, address or directions, and in line with this point of view, we never get his character’s name in the film. He’s tormented by surreal nightmares about his son who died of an overdose, and has to keeps notes to remember who wants him dead. But his punches still land solidly, and one lands so well at his local dive that he takes out a loudmouth bully, then takes home his girlfriend (Yolonda Ross).

Our man was in the bar drowning his sorrows at the bottom of a bourbon after being diagnosed with CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, after all those blows he’s sustained (despite the fact that CTE can only officially be diagnosed posthumously). With his time running out, what is he going to do with it?

Suddenly, he’s energized to make things right.

“Absolution” is only interesting insofar as an entry into the Neeson canon, but not as its own film. The script is derivative, trading in tired tropes and stereotypes, lacking in any real insights or even local color.

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