All-action Neeson sets sights on Bonnie and Clyde

Busy Irish star Liam Neeson is to stay in his new all-action mode for his next movie — playing one of the Texas Rangers who hunted down and killed notorious robbers and outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

Neeson, 60, is teaming up with Hollywood actor Woody Harrelson for the film Highwaymen.

It will focus on the lawman Frank Hamer, who was coaxed into tracking down the well-known outlaws by a consortium of banks in order to stop the pair on the stealing sprees.

Hamer was known for surviving about 100 gunfights and is also reported to have killed 53 people. He turned his attention to the deadly duo after they organised a jailbreak, during which they killed a guard.

John Lee Hancock will direct the project, which is set to begin filming in the first half of 2014. John Fusco has penned the script and Casey Silver will produce the action.

The last Western which Neeson starred in was Seraphim Falls, which co-starred fellow Irish actor Pierce Brosnan in 2006.

It was a moderate success at the box office and starred Neeson and Brosnan as adversaries.

Bonnie and Clyde were previously played in a hit movie in the 1970s by Hollywood superstars Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.

In recent years Ballymena-born Neeson has ventured into action movies, including Taken and Taken 2, The A Team, The Grey, and Unknown.

The next project for the star, who lives in New York with his two teenage sons, will see him lend his voice to the children’s family film Khumba and the animated comedy The Nut Job, in which he will star alongside Brendan Fraser and Katherine Heigl.