Bryan (Liam Neeson) is a retired CIA covert operative now living in LA to get closer to his estranged daughter Kim (Maggie Grace; whose supposed to be seventeen is movie-magically looks a lot younger than in Lost) after years of ignoring her.
I guess this would be a lot easier if his job experience hadn't made him a bit paranoid. He's nearly freaking out when he hears that Kim (can it be a coincidence she shares the name of the useless-except-for-being-kidnapped character from 24?) is planning on travelling to that hotbed of danger, Baghdad Paris, but caves in after some time.
Of course our primitive continent turns out to be just as dangerous as the professional killer from the country with the much higher rate of violent crime prophesized and Kim and the friend she's travelling with are promptly kidnapped after their arrival. They are the victims of a not-very-bright gang of Albanian human traffickers that specializes in kidnapping foreign tourists in Paris and turning them into prostitutes. Kidnapping those young women who are going to be missed the most and can cause international pressure to be put on the local law enforcement has worked out perfectly fine for them, of course.
At least until Bryan arrives and turns Paris into his own private warzone. Neither the corrupt French authorities (I am rather surprised that this is actually a French film) nor lots and lots of thugs can stop him from getting his daughter back.
I wouldn't have expected Liam Neeson to be such a great action movie actor. It turns out he is the real secret weapon of the film and soon helped me forget the very stupid set-up for all the death and destruction. Neeson is of course not a martial artist, instead he's a real actor who is able to give Bryan a little more depth than the script provides, making him one of the more frightening anti-heroes of his type, all barely controlled rage and intensity and completely convincing violence.
Director Pierre Morel should be known through his excellent debut Banlieue 13. Taken isn't as grandly over the top intense and mad as the former film that turned the rather strange art of parcour into a perfect action movie base. This has nothing to do with Morel failing and a lot with Morel being able to make different movies in the same genre - an ability I wish more young directors had. Being less extreme doesn't make the action sequences here any less excellent than those in Banlieue 13, though. Morel goes for a different feel to the action here, something more gritty and theoretically realistic, which of course mostly means that the stunts and fights do look more like people hurting each other and less like dancing - as it should be in a movie with this type of storyline and such a remorseless "hero". Neeson (and his stunt doubles) seem to be game for anything that is thrown at them, giving everything a sheen of believability that is only further strengthened by the sort of old-fashioned sense of camera work and editing that shows more of the action than just a shaking camera.
So, if you like to see Liam Neeson playing something different or want to see a fine contemporary action film from Europe and are willing to suspend your disbelief for the first twenty minutes of a movie, I can highly recommend Taken to you.
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4 comments:
Glad you liked it! The beginning is entirely too stupid and sappy, but once you get that out of the way it's good stuff.
I tend to either like or hate things Luc Besson gets involved with, but his writing is rarely awesome. It's mostly an excuse to get into the action. It works for movies like Taxi 2 and Wasabi, which I am very fond of even though they are silly.
I agree about Besson. His writing gets worse the more serious he takes the film (or himself), I think.
Even in Taken I had the feeling he took his rather bizarre idea how human trafficking works quite serious.
But hey - it's definitely fun (and I don't want to meet Liam Neeson when he's pissed at me).
It's funny but true. I'd say Léon and possibly Nikita are are the only exceptions to that rule, and those were pretty much the start of his career.
I haven't seen Subway or Le Grand Bleu, but one of them has Christopher Lambert in it so I am betting it isn't good. I could be wrong. ;)
Neeson has done some action before; the sword fight in Rob Roy is famous, and he was even in Krull (and I almost brought those things up in my review). But the man's in his fifties now, and this was the last thing I expected to see from him. It's nice to see people work outside their expected zones.
I must have seen Subway years ago. I only remember many long meaningful glances and spiky new wave hair-cuts.
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