I’m not sure if 2009 just has some of the best movies of all time, or I’m just suspending way more of my disbelief than normal, this year. Either way, Taken, is one of the best action movies, ever!
Liam Neeson in the lead role of a movie that was hyped up to be all about revenge and killing people with guns, and promised absolutely no mentor-like traits for the main character, seemed like an odd fit. Maybe that’s just because I’m not as familiar with Neeson’s pre-21st century work as I should be, but he has always seemed like the mentor to me. I never really understood why he was put into films that involved him moving swiftly, pummeling people with fists or acting otherwise badass. His body type doesn’t seem right for it; he’s so damned tall and lanky. Nevertheless, Neeson seldom disappoints.
The first thirty minutes of Taken seemed devoted to quickly passing through slim shades of character backgrounds, establishing character relationships and a hint of story development that the audience knew would simply lead to some kind of turmoil, in spite of Neeson’s character, Bryan Mills. Though most of this part of the generic action movie formula was easy to see coming, some of it was refreshing. I was glad to see Mills was a military man who made the mistake of trying to have a family, but retired to make time for his daughter, Kim, played by Maggie Grace, who seemed to appreciate him. I was confused, alter, however, when Kim went through a fairly elaborate lie in a successful attempt at deceiving her father. This character trait was emphasized by Mills’ ex-wife and Kim’s mother, Lenore, played by one of my favorite actresses, Famke Janssen, when she basically spoke wrote to the audience, telling us that Kim could never really trust her father.
Thankfully, we were soon finished with typical spoon-fed characterizations and story and were on to the action part of the film. HUZZAH!
So, Kim, the daughter of some sort of ex-military-secret-agent-spy-ninja-kills-people guy, goes alone with other hot teenage chicks to Paris, where (surprise) all the hot chicks get kidnapped and put into an underground black market that specializes in selling sexy, female tourists to rich mob bosses, mostly likely for kinky, old-man secks. When said kidnappers enter the room to collect their ho’s, Kim is on the phone with her father. At first, this seemed kind of “yeah, right”, but my opinion of the writing quickly improved as Mills told his daughter to hide under the bed, try to scream out descriptions of the attackers as she saw them, and that, oh, yeah… she was going to be TAKEN. Dun, dun duuuuhhhhnnnnn!!!!
At this point, Neeson gives a nice little speech to the kidnapper who picks up the phone, telling him exactly what the picture at the top of this post says. Next, Mills commences to hit-manning it up.
/* [ACTION SEQUENCE]
Turns out his old military buddies pinpointed exactly who the kidnappers are and exactly what they were kidnapped for. So, now that pretty much everything concerning story is out of the way, Mills runs to Paris, kills people, talks with some old friend who is high up in the French government (who was in on everything the whole time, but we saw that coming, anyway), kills more people, finds his daughter being sold at an auction, kills even more people, gets handcuffed to a pipe, kills more people, shoots some old dude in the head, then takes his daughter back to America for voice lessons. Oh, I didn’t mention? Kim wants to be a singer, someday.
*/ [ACTON SEQUENCE]
The part that made this movie was the whole action part of it where Mills is gathering information while killing people. One part that made it so nice was that the camera angles and choreography made Neeson look like a professional when it comes to hand-to-hand self defense. Another thing about the action sequence was that it had aspects of the typical, unrealistic action movie followed immediately by something that seemed more realistic. For example, Mills has dinner with the old-friend-who’s-in-on-kidnapping-his-daughter-but-we-all-saw-that-coming-anyway named Jean-Claude (no, not that one) and wants information from him, suspecting he’s in on the kidnapping thing. Old drinking buddy grabs his gun and points it at Mills, but Mills had at some point taken all the ammo out of the gun (…wah?!), but then Mills takes out his gun and asks old drinking buddy for info. Hold up, it’s ’bout to get real, y’all. ODB (old drinking buddy), acts ignorant, so Mills shoots ODB’s innocent wife, but doesn’t kill her, then asks his question, again. See, that’s the kind of stuff that put this movie above other action movies, for me. Mills just plain doesn’t give a damn about anything besides getting his daughter. In fact, I’m pretty sure he left all her friends there to get raped by drug lords.
Pros: information gathering scenes, fighting scenes, shooting innocent people, killing the top-tier bad guy without letting him give a soliloquy
Cons: typical movie formula, no montages, no nudity (that I recall), happy ending (seemed weird to have one considering some of the realism in the film)
Popularity: 3% [?]
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Zeblue is an 
Watch it again just for the daughter parts at the front of the movie. My buddy and I were DYING laughing just watching here run around like she belongs on the short bus. Very awkward. She needed kidnapped.
Otherwise, YES Liam surprisingly ROCKED this movie. No lame Qui-Gon Jinn here.