Liam Neeson has signed up for a new action movie that will team him back up with Robert Lorenz, who directed Neeson in The Marksman, which found its way to the top of the U.S. box office earlier in the year. In the Land of Saints and Sinners, a thriller set in Ireland, will see Neeson getting into a tussle with terrorists as a retired assassin pulled into a deadly cat and mouse race against time. The film also stars Ciaran Hinds, star of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Belfast but there is little known about who else features in the cast.

The movie will be shot on location in Ireland around March 2022, and Neeson will be hoping for another brutal hit on his hands, as he is certainly no stranger to the role of a gun-brandishing action hero with massive hits such as Taken, Cold Pursuit and The Ice Road. Additionally, the Irish actor is currently filming the thriller Retribution, a remake of the Spanish movie El desconocido, as well having the action movies Blacklight and Memory both in post-production and expected to arrive sometime next year.

Liam Neeson has frequently dropped in and out of the action-thriller genre since his early work in the 1980s, appearing in movies like A Prayer For The Dying and Clint Eastwood's final Dirty Harry movie The Dead Pool, before becoming more known for dramas such as Rob Roy, Schindler's List and Michael Collins. He genre jumped through the 2000s, having roles in the Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace, voicing Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and taking a gentler turn in Love Actually. However in 2008, Neeson took the lead role in the often quoted Taken as a man on a mission to save his kidnapped daughter, and wherever his career took him after that, he was never too far away from the sound of gunfire and against-the-clock action movies.

Having appeared in over 104 movies, and seemingly more than happy to take on more big action roles, Neeson surprised many when appear on RTE's Late Late Show, when he let slip to host Ryan Tubridy that he is about to hit his 70th birthday. Like so many action heroes, such as Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis et al, Neeson doesn't seem to be letting his age get in the way of throwing himself into a role, no matter how brutal and demanding. When speaking to Screen Rant about his role in The Marksman, he explained that action movies are not only about the action, but about the story and how that is translated to screen by the director and the other actors.

"I think the draw will be all of those elements of different genres that you mentioned. It's certainly a road movie, and certainly an action film. It's a very human film, I think, with a lot of heart. And it's just a good story. It's just a really good story. It's got a lot of heart. When I first saw the film, I found myself being moved by the bad guy, Mauricio, played by Juan Pablo Raba. He's a fantastic actor. I find myself seeing life from his eyes. He was made to be a drug carrier from an early age, to be a cartel soldier from the age of 10 or 11. I didn't quite see that in the script, but then when Juan Pablo played it, it was like, "Wow, of course." I was full of admiration for him, and for Rob Lorenz's directing. He's from the Clint Eastwood school: shoot the rehearsal, or maximum do two takes and move on. I love doing that."

This story originated at Deadline.