Country:
USA/France
Recognizable Faces:
Liam Neeson
Maggie Grace
Famke Janssen
Gérard Watkins
Directed By:
Pierre Morel
I like Liam Neeson. I am genuinely happy to see his career relaunched as an action hero. He has some of that Clint Eastwood scrawny-improbable-badass charisma. I thought I'd like Taken all right, since it's THE movie that put him back in the game, but reality would prove to be different. During the viewing, I kept picturing Taken's writer as this burly cigar smoking southern man, with an NRA cap and a confederate flag on his wall. I almost spit my coffee this morning when I found out this movie was written by Luc Besson, who directed some timeless movies such as The Fifth Element, The Professional and wrote the kick-ass French series Taxi. I never expected an America Vs The World movie from him of all people.
Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired CIA agent that tries to piece up his life back together by being there for his daughter (Grace). When she asks him the permission to go to France, Mills hesitates because he wants to "keep his daughter safe". Because the Paris HE knows (and only HE has traveled), is extremely dangerous. He gives in, only to find out Kim and her friend plan to travel all over Europe to follow a rock band. Of course, she gets snatched right off the plane, by a bunch of dangerous human trafficking Albanian mobsters. And Eastbound is Neeson, to save his beloved daughter from the fucked up foreigners
I would have loved Taken a lot more if it wasn't for the fact that everything not American is automatically an extreme danger. I mean, the girls are literally snatched RIGHT OFF THE FUCKING PLANE. I mean c'mon! Even in Rambo, the dumb Christian missionaries at least WALK into Burma to get in trouble. Not in Taken they don't. Everything is so black and white in this story and Bryan Mills is such a self-righteous hero, it would tick off the biggest action fans. Even when he walks into Paris and seeks the help of old friends, literally EVERYBODY is an asshole. I wouldn't even have called it if everybody in the whole movie would be a dick to Mills, but it's not the case. There's a scene in the beginning where he barbecues and drinks beers with his CIA budddies. I don't want to overdo it, but the movie does. It's just a bit too political to be noir.
The movie is not a complete farce though. Once you put aside the 1956 cold war mentality of xenophobia, the action itself is rather groovy. Neeson leaves only carnage in his trail and it's beautiful. One of my favorite scenes was when he put his hands on Peter (Nicolas Giraud), the mobsters airport recon and punches him repeatedly in the liver. Peter escapes on foot, hilariously holding his liver in, while Neeson chases him with a taxi. There are many scenes of similar brutal beauty in Taken, which makes it somewhat enjoyable to watch. Mobsters are smart, but they don't have shit on a scorned CIA officer, looking for the only person that makes the world bearable to him.
Execution is not the problem. It's a movie shot clean, with solid, classic camera work and without any of the trendy action flare of the latest years (I.E. Fights in macro, shaky cam). If you can take a good political mindfuck without flinching too much, you might even find this very enjoyable. But for the love of myself, I cannot understand why Pierre Morel and Luc Besson of all people tried to weave a political point into a movie that should have been even darker. Did they feel forced to justify Bryan Mills' CIA background? They shouldn't they have chosen a darker destination than freakin' Paris? I mean, they took the time to put a map in Kim's luggage, with a Pan-European itinerary, why not make this happen in Albania or something? Taken was entertaining for an hour and a half, but I couldn't get over the fact that Pierre Morel and Luc Besson thought I was incredibly stupid.
SCORE: 66%