Liam Neeson is pausing from starring in some of the most dreadful action thrillers you’ve ever seen to lend his gravelly tones to anti-vax documentary Plague of Corruption.
Well, this is disappointing. Not as disappointing as Liam Neeson‘s career recently, mind you. You always hope Neeson will chalk up a win, because when he’s good, he’s really really good and, hey, The Naked Gun was fun, wasn’t it? But less fun is the news that the man who’s played everyone from Michael Collins to Oskar Schindler to fucking Aslan will next be appearing – vocally at least – in Plague of Corruption: 80 Years Of Pharmaceutical Corruption Exposed.
That’s a terrible title – using “corruption” twice is just bad writing – for what sounds like a terrible film. According to the newsletter Important Context, which broke the story, Plague of Corruption “glorifies the rise” of Neeson’s fellow leathery revenant Robert Kennedy Jr., the current US Health and Human Services Secretary, and “…features a bevy of discredited claims about vaccines, including that they cause autism and aluminum toxicity, and frames Kennedy’s leadership of U.S. health policy as hopeful.”
The film is based on a book by discredited former research scientist turned anti-vaccination activist Judy Mikovits and the wonderfully named attorney, Kent Heckenlively. Know what isn’t heckin’ lively? Kids with polio. Plague of Corruption the book is the second in a trilogy, bookended by Plague: One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth About Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Ending Plague: A Scholar’s Obligation in an Age of Corruption. All else aside, these people have a subtitle problem.
Mikovits is best known for her “plandemic” allegations, while Heckenlively’s latest book, co-written with Plague Of Corruption director Michael Mazzola and published only last month, is titled Catastrophic Disclosure: The Deep State, Aliens, and the Truth, so he’s clearly a man of deep thought and wide-ranging interests.
As for Neeson, whose recent filmography looks like the weekly action section in Hell’s own Blockbuster, he’s been a UNICEF Goodwill ambassador since 2011 and previously described vaccines as “a remarkable human success story”, so this development is frankly baffling. It seems to be baffling his reps, too, who released a statement:
We all recognize that corruption can exist within the pharmaceutical industry, but that should never be conflated with opposition to vaccines. Liam never has been, and is not, anti-vaccination. His extensive work with UNICEF underscores his long-held support for global immunization and public-health initiatives. He did not shape the film’s editorial content, and any questions about its claims or messaging should be directed to the producers.
Which is just ass-covering boilerplate, at the end of the day. Can’t say we’re particularly taken with this news.
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