Brutal Taken a Nasty Thriller
Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) used to work for the CIA as a “Preventer,” as a man who stopped bad things from happening by making those who would do such evil feel his wrath before their plans could be executed. He’s retired now, living in Los Angeles to be close to his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) even if his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) isn’t exactly happy about it.
Liam Neeson takes aim in 20th Century Fox's Taken
Over-protective to a fault, his skill for worrying ends up coming in handy after Kim is kidnapped while speaking to him on her cell phone by slavers during an impromptu trip to Paris. Bryan’s message to the villains is simple: Give me back my daughter or else.
But they choose not to listen, chuckling like fools as they close the connection. Soon this former government agent skilled in stopping harm from happening is about to unleash a fury the City of Lights has never before seen, the only thing that matters the life of his beloved little girl and nothing will stand in his way during this violent search for justice.
Make no bones about it, screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen (The Transporter trilogy, Kiss of the Dragon, Unleashed) aren’t exactly subtle. They’re down and dirty B-movie impresarios who, much like Neverland’s Lost Boys, have never bothered to grow up, their almost gleefully male adolescent fantasies of revenge, retribution and rebirth showcasing a giggly juvenile polish impossible to miss.
Don’t let the fact former Oscar-nominee Neeson stars fool you, the pair’s latest enterprise Taken follows their usual blueprint to the letter. Much like all of those aforementioned films, here you’ve also got an extremely talented former government employee with a set of unparalleled lethal skills facing a legion of attackers bent on doing him harm.
But instead of driving cross-country delivering packages or participating in cage fights as if he were a pet dog, Bryan is all about finding those responsible for taking his daughter, giving the movie a personal dimension many of those other works lack. In some small way this can almost make you forgive some of the man’s more nihilistic tendencies, his bloodily brutal focus understandable considering the truly horrific situation he finds himself facing.
That’s a mighty big almost, though. Like Roy Scheider’s Harry Mitchell in John Frankenheimer’s 52 Pick-Up, Neeson’s Bryan Mills doesn’t exactly go out of his way to illicit our sympathies. This is a very, very ugly man, and while one applauds his attempts to become a better person in order to be a good father when the chips come down and his basest tendencies come to the forefront it’s hard not to be put more than a little bit off by them.
It isn’t that he kills people; it’s how he does it that’s so nerve-wracking. The lack of any sort of sympathy, of anything even close to compassion, for anyone at all is something to see. While it makes sense for him to go after the kidnappers full-throttle, this guy doesn’t give anyone, even other victims, a second of anything I would even remotely call tenderness. He’s as cold-hearted and as vindictively single-minded as any movie character I can recall, and much like Lee Marvin in John Boorman’s Point Blank he’ll smack anyone and everyone around – including wives and mothers – if he thinks it will get him want he wants.
Director Pierre Morel (District B-13) takes these character traits and runs with them. The whole movie becomes something of a Joseph Conrad-like descent into darkness, and the closer Bryan comes to the truth the seedier and more oft-putting the film becomes. This is the kind of picture where by the time it’s over you feel covered in the grit and the grime everyone is sifting through, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to more than once squirming so uncomfortably in my seat I actually considered bolting for the door.
The thing is, I kind of think that’s actually sort of a good thing. With so many movies not having the nerve to dive headfirst into the more disgusting aspects of their melodrama the fact this one does without anything close to hesitancy is rather impressive. There is a strength of conviction here that I can’t help but applaud, Neeson holding it all together with a ferociously feral performance that’s arguably as good as some of the best he’s ever given.
I’m not entirely sure that’s enough. Besson and Kamen give in far too much to their more imbecilic tendencies, the women in their picture once again nothing more than window dressing to be used and abused in masochistic glee. They’re all about the skimpy clothes, the skyscraper heels and the lascivious come-hither glances, and by the umpteenth time another young woman was paraded across the screen like a hooker at brothel I almost wanted to scream.
Yet Taken kept me galvanized from start to finish, and no matter how stupid it got or how vile the scenarios became I actually did want to know what was going to happen next. Bryan is a compelling figure of unleashed aggression and agony, and more often than not he did things I didn’t come close to expecting. I sort of feel like this is a movie that’s gone off and abducted my common sense, the finished product a piece of piratical B-grade entertainment I'll find difficult to forget.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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