Taken «««
PG-13, 94m. 2008
Cast & Credits: Liam Neeson (Bryan Mills), Maggie Grace (Kim), Famke Janssen (Lenore), Xander Berkeley (Stuart), Olivier Rabourdin (Jean-Claude). Screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Kamen. Directed by Pierre Morel.
Taken has all the ingredients of a CSI episode, minus the fact none of the villains are ever brought to justice and that we never see graphic displays of how a bullet, illegal substance, or electrical current went through flesh killing the victim or how a bomb went off.
Take, for example, the scene early on when ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) arrives in France to find his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and her friend who have been kidnapped by underworld assailants. As he is looking around their disheveled Paris apartment for clues, the film goes back in time with Bryan picturing in his mind how the kidnapping went down. The scenes are just like you are watching a CSI episode.
From that point on, the story is like the latest James Bond film, Quantum of Solace (2008), where 007 is out for revenge and doesn’t make time for small talk. By comparison, Neeson’s Mills takes matters into his own hands throughout the streets of Paris going after the ones who took his daughter.
“You can’t just run around tearing down Paris,” says an old friend who was also in the espionage business with Mills.
“I’ll tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to,” Mills tells him.
I admit I had no interest in seeing Taken until I learned it was one of the top five box office hits of 2009 to hit the $100 million mark since its Jan. 30 release. To date, it still continues to do well staying in the top five box office hits. What makes it even more surprising is usually at this time of year, there are no $100 million box office hits until the Spring or early Summer.
Neeson, however, has a theory on why box office business has been lucrative for this film.
“People are angry and disgruntled about the economy,” he was quoted saying in Entertainment Weekly. “They’re empathizing with a guy who takes matters into his own hands. There’s a catharsis that comes from that.”
I suppose if Bruce Willis had been cast in the lead role as opposed to Neeson, I might have liked Taken even less. I know that any movie that Willis is cast in, minus the Die Hard films, where his character is pitted against a group of villains, that I know how it is all going to end. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Willis’ character comes out bloodied and bruised but at least he is still alive.
What makes Taken work is the casting of Neeson who doesn’t come off as an action star despite roles in Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) and Batman Begins (2005). He is the kind of actor you would expect to see in more dramatic films like Schindler’s List (1993), Michael Collins (1996), or Kinsey (2004).
What makes Taken even more entertaining is watching this divorced father turn into a walking, no nonsense killing machine who stops at nothing until he finds his daughter. I sat there rooting for his character every minute and didn’t give a damn about the sleazebag villains who’d either be eating bullets or getting tortured with electricity for information over the course of the film’s 90 minutes. As far as the villains were concerned who dealt in kidnapping American women overseas for the sex slave trade, they didn’t deserve to live.
Neeson’s character reminded me of what Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard said about Col. Kilgore, the crazy Vietnam colonel Robert Duvall played in Apocalypse Now (1979) and how he wasn’t scared to surf the war-torn shores while bullets were flying during combat.
“He was one of those guys that had a weird light around,” Willard said. “You just knew he wasn’t going to get so much as a scratch here.”
By comparison, Neeson’s Mills goes through the entire film without being severely injured. His only scratch near the end is maybe the bandage wrapped around his hand that caught a bullet earlier during the many gunfights that happened often throughout the film.
©3/2/09
PG-13, 94m. 2008
Cast & Credits: Liam Neeson (Bryan Mills), Maggie Grace (Kim), Famke Janssen (Lenore), Xander Berkeley (Stuart), Olivier Rabourdin (Jean-Claude). Screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Kamen. Directed by Pierre Morel.
Take, for example, the scene early on when ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) arrives in France to find his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and her friend who have been kidnapped by underworld assailants. As he is looking around their disheveled Paris apartment for clues, the film goes back in time with Bryan picturing in his mind how the kidnapping went down. The scenes are just like you are watching a CSI episode.
From that point on, the story is like the latest James Bond film, Quantum of Solace (2008), where 007 is out for revenge and doesn’t make time for small talk. By comparison, Neeson’s Mills takes matters into his own hands throughout the streets of Paris going after the ones who took his daughter.
“You can’t just run around tearing down Paris,” says an old friend who was also in the espionage business with Mills.
“I’ll tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to,” Mills tells him.
I admit I had no interest in seeing Taken until I learned it was one of the top five box office hits of 2009 to hit the $100 million mark since its Jan. 30 release. To date, it still continues to do well staying in the top five box office hits. What makes it even more surprising is usually at this time of year, there are no $100 million box office hits until the Spring or early Summer.
Neeson, however, has a theory on why box office business has been lucrative for this film.
“People are angry and disgruntled about the economy,” he was quoted saying in Entertainment Weekly. “They’re empathizing with a guy who takes matters into his own hands. There’s a catharsis that comes from that.”
I suppose if Bruce Willis had been cast in the lead role as opposed to Neeson, I might have liked Taken even less. I know that any movie that Willis is cast in, minus the Die Hard films, where his character is pitted against a group of villains, that I know how it is all going to end. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Willis’ character comes out bloodied and bruised but at least he is still alive.
What makes Taken work is the casting of Neeson who doesn’t come off as an action star despite roles in Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) and Batman Begins (2005). He is the kind of actor you would expect to see in more dramatic films like Schindler’s List (1993), Michael Collins (1996), or Kinsey (2004).
What makes Taken even more entertaining is watching this divorced father turn into a walking, no nonsense killing machine who stops at nothing until he finds his daughter. I sat there rooting for his character every minute and didn’t give a damn about the sleazebag villains who’d either be eating bullets or getting tortured with electricity for information over the course of the film’s 90 minutes. As far as the villains were concerned who dealt in kidnapping American women overseas for the sex slave trade, they didn’t deserve to live.
Neeson’s character reminded me of what Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard said about Col. Kilgore, the crazy Vietnam colonel Robert Duvall played in Apocalypse Now (1979) and how he wasn’t scared to surf the war-torn shores while bullets were flying during combat.
“He was one of those guys that had a weird light around,” Willard said. “You just knew he wasn’t going to get so much as a scratch here.”
By comparison, Neeson’s Mills goes through the entire film without being severely injured. His only scratch near the end is maybe the bandage wrapped around his hand that caught a bullet earlier during the many gunfights that happened often throughout the film.
©3/2/09
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