About 15 years ago, Liam Neeson picked up a cellphone and growled a haunting, threatening monologue that changed the course of his career. Playing the hardened ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills in the movie Taken, Neeson warned the men who’d kidnapped his teenage daughter about his “very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.” It was the beginning of a surprising renaissance for the esteemed actor. In his mid-50s, he became an action star, headlining a long run of cheaply made, typically European-set thrillers in which he played gun-toting men in leather jackets with, well, murderous skills. There are too many of these movies to name, and they tend to be better known by a one-sentence plot description. Neeson on a plane? That’s the marvelous Non-Stop. On a train? The decently schlocky The Commuter. Neeson at a ski resort? Cold Pursuit. Neeson as an ice-road trucker? They just called that one The Ice Road. Further evidence that the studios are …