Taken is a French action thriller starring Oscar nominee Liam Neeson with X-Men star Famke Janssen and Maggie Grace revolving around a retired CIA agent who tracks down his teenage daughter after she is abducted by Albanian human traffickers in France. After losing his wife and daughter due to the dedication he possessed for his career, Bryan Mills retires in order to spend more time with his daughter Kim who lives with her mother and step father Stuart.
17-year-old Kim gets permission from her over-protective father to go to France with her friend, after which she is kidnapped by a group of traffickers while on the phone with her father.
What ensues is a bloody trail of revenge and desperation as Bryan tracks her kidnappers through the deeply rooted underbelly of the French underworld in an attempt to find his daughter before she is sold into a life of drugs and prostitution. Directed by Pierre Morel, who worked on the Transporter as a choreographer and later directed District 13, the film received great box office success despite its seemingly formulaic plotline and indifferent acting.
Liam Neeson, who is well renowned and respected for his portrayal of Oskar Schindler in the multiple award-winning Spielberg film Schindler’s List, played the deadly dad in Bryan Mills. Impervious to gunfire, speeding vehicles, knives or even the sheer ruckus caused by the limitless pileups he causes on the French highways, Neeson plays an utterly one dimensional character plagued with prescribed Schwarzeneggerisms and equally dull witted clichéd dialogue. He is in fact perfect for action junkies who couldn’t care less about a plotline. Maggie Grace (LOST) plays a 17-year-old Kim which brought a long standing query to my mind. Why do films have 25-year-old actresses playing teenagers? Grace’s performance was purely awful but she looked great in front of the camera while running like a two-year-old certainly did make her look a little younger.
Famke Janssen (X-Men, I-Spy) played another stereotypical character of the constantly nagging, incredibly spiteful ex-wife who believes in flaunting her rich husband and his trappings in order to vent out her bitterness towards Bryan. The film also has a great stereotypical look at the ‘barbaric world’ outside the safety of the US or in other words Europe, while it also addresses the obvious threat posed by the endless streams of Eastern European immigrants rushing into the first world countries. Add about fifty Albanian talking stooges whose purpose is primarily to get killed or ‘neutralised’ in gruesome if not ingenious ways and you’ve got yourself a very successful action flick on your hands.
Taken uses its story to drive the audience to cheer every brutal killing like it was Independence Day and therein lies the film’s secret weapon. The film wastes no time with characterisations and camera angles, instead it concentrates on delivering an uninterrupted stream of action sequences and not-so-clever dialogue in order to lull its audience into a state of trance in which there is no time to speculate on the completely ridiculous plot and its hideously conceived coincidences. The film is a teeming cauldron of terrible acting, forgettable set pieces, horrid storylines and infuriatingly irrelevant titbits on the CIA and its capabilities. However, the film is guaranteed to satisfy its audiences with a barrage of unadulterated killing and will prove to be a neat little film for you action buffs. |
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