Liam Neeson appears in a scene from “The Marksman.”

In recent interviews, Liam Neeson has said he will be retiring from action movies.

If that is true, his latest film, “The Marksman,” sees Neeson move on from his action film career more with a whimper than a bang.

In this film, Neeson goes through the motions with a script full of plot holes that grow even more preposterous as the story goes on.

In “The Marksman,” Neeson plays Jim, a recently widowed former Marine living on his Arizona ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border. When a young woman (Teresa Ruiz) and her pre-teen son Miguel (Jacob Perez) cross the border to escape a drug cartel kingpin, Jim finds himself caught in the middle – becoming the unlikely ally for the refugees who are trying to get to family in Chicago.

“The Marksman” hits a lot of the familiar notes that have become staples in Neeson’s films, but it feels like he isn’t really interested in putting too much into his work.

To be fair, I really can’t blame Neeson’s disinterest as the script (credited to three writers) is full of absurd plot devices. This film, for example, puts in a scene of Neeson lowering a flag on his property for no reason other than to give him this sense of patriotism that I am sure came from director Robert Lorenz working with Clint Eastwood on several of his films (including “American Sniper.”)

“The Marksman” has a handful of plot points that aren’t just holes defying logic, but immense craters that make it hard to suspend disbelief even a smidge.

The interaction between Neeson and Perez never works, with no chemistry at all between the two actors.

And the lead villain (Juan Pablo Raba) is such a bad caricature that it isn’t just boring, it is borderline offensive (the character also does a couple of acts, offscreen, that really push the PG-13 envelope).

It all builds a mundane final act that just emphasizes what the audience has known in everything leading up to it – that when it comes to Neeson action films, this is about as middle of the road as you can get. It’s a mediocre cash grab that probably would have been nothing more than a blip at the box office in a nonpandemic world.

Starring: Liam Neeson, Jacob Perez

Directed by: Robert Lorenz

Rating: PG-13 for violence, some bloody images and brief strong language

Playing at: Highland Cinemas in Glasgow

Grade: D+