Taken

Taken – 2009

 *** Out of ****

            This must be the time of the year for old men to open some big ol’ cans of whoop-ass; first we had Clint Eastwood as the sour racist in Gran Torino, and next we have Liam Neeson on a globe-trotting mission to return his daughter.  Now all we need is them to star in a crossover.  He’s Taken My Gran Torino, anyone?

          Taken is not so much a revenge thriller as it is kidnapping film with revenge simply tagging along for the ride.  And it’s quite a ride.  Bryan Mills (Neeson) does everything he can to please his daughter Kim. (Lost’s Maggie Grace)  He has retired earlier then his colleagues from his job as a spy, he moves to California to be nearer to her and his ex (Famke Janssen) in an attempt to reconnect and regain his lost years.  While Kim adores her father, his disciplined background keeps them at a distance so when the opportunity comes to allow Kim to take a trip to Paris with her friend, Bryan reluctantly takes the points, and allows her to go.  But shortly after arrival, Kim and her friend are taken my unknown assailants, and it is up to Bryan to track down and rescue Kim before she vanishes forever.

          Taken succeeds because of three things.  Firstly the characters and the actors playing them (especially Neeson) are developed enough and do sufficient enough acting jobs to lend a lot of credibility to the unlikely scenario.  Secondly, the low key way the story unfolds somehow manages to mask the highly preposterous likelihood Kim would ever be found and thirdly because of its thrilling and gritty action which never for a second fails to entertain.  After seeing Taken I was bothered by why I enjoyed Taken so much more then other revenge or kidnapping films like 2007’s Death Sentence which I found to be both utterly ridiculous and morally repugnant.  While Taken had its somewhat sadistic scenes, it never felt morally bankrupt like other films of its ilk.  It finally clicked at random; Taken is driven by an objective, an end goal, for Bryan to return his daughter.  Similar films are driven only by revenge and chronicle the vigilante killings and promote jumbled messages.  Like I stated in the opening of this review, the killings are the means to an end, and because of that it is far easier to enjoy.

          I have no hesitation in calling Taken the best action movie of the year and it is certainly a joy to see Neeson back on screen and doing something different and entertaining.  It just lends to the long running trend that acting is usually the last thing to go wrong with a film, and with somebody like Neeson at the helm, Taken achieves a whole new level credibility and could mark the beginning of a new face in the world of action.