Starring Liam Neeson. Rated PG

Spanish action-film auteur Jaume Collet-Serra makes such a shiny, speeding locomotive out of The Commuter that you almost forget how light its cargo is.

Collet-Serra, the Spanish Alfred Hitchcock nut, has managed, once again, to craft breathless high art out of B-movie trash. He’s elevated the action here so much that you don’t have five seconds to contemplate how preposterous the plot actually is—let alone wonder what in the hell has Liam Neeson still tapping his action-hero heyday in his 60s.

The Commuter races past all Collet-Serra’s other rides in films like Unknown and Non-Stop, be they plane, ship, or automobile. You know you’re in the hands of a master during the opening montage, in which the director quick-edits together insurance salesman Michael MacCauley’s (Neeson) morning routine and commute, blending the years and the seasons to emphasize the predictability of the daily trip. But today, the journey won’t be so mundane, starting with debt-strapped ex-cop MacCauley receiving his pink slip and culminating with a smiling Vera Farmiga offering him a sinister $100,000 proposition on a rush-hour train home to the New York burbs. He needs to “find the passenger who doesn’t belong” and plant a tracker on him or her—or risk the lives of both his fellow commuters and his family at home.

Farmiga gives her small role a flirtatious ferocity, and Neeson lends his usual gravitas to the outrageous scenario. (It’s projected early on that the elaborate conspiracy might involve high-level corruption.) They’re matched by a trainload of colourful characters and plausible red herrings, from Breaking Bad toughie Jonathan Banks to Lady Macbeth’s Florence Pugh.

But the biggest thrills come from the camera work, Collet-Serra and cinematographer Paul Cameron’s lens zooming through railcars while the landscape speeds by, and zeroing in on exaggerated details, from ticket stubs to the eyes that seem to follow MacCauley wherever he goes. Torqued up with that paranoia and boasting a killer fight scene over the speeding tracks, it feels a little like Strangers on a Train and Shadow of a Doubt mashed up with Unstoppable and The Fast and the Furious.

So even if you’re convinced you don’t need to see Neeson grimace his way through yet another race against the clock, this commute is a lot more exciting than what you’re likely to experience on the SkyTrain anytime soon.