Taken (2008) – Taken is the film that established Liam
Neeson as an action star, and rightly so – his turn as Bryan Mills is forceful and
exciting, an earnest breath of fresh air in a genre that is currently often too
self-aware to be compelling. While the
first half-hour is a bit slow, it establishes Bryan’s dedication to his
daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), so that we can fully enjoy the final hour of the
film, which revolves around Bryan’s quest to save his daughter from Albanian
slave traders in Paris. Indeed, if the
film is a perfect action film, it’s on the strength of this last hour, when
Bryan deploys his “very particular set of skills” to great effect. Though the film sometimes borders on
incredulous, Neeson sells it by playing it straight, never winking at the credulity-straining
moments. All of this is not to say that the
film, co-written by Luc Besson, is humorless; in fact, some of the film’s best
scenes are its funniest, as when Bryan impersonates a French police officer in
order to identify the voice of his daughter’s captor, Marko from Tropoje. Bryan’s scenes with Marko, as well as his
scenes with corrupt French policeman Jean-Claude (a suitably smarmy Olivier
Rabourdin), let Neeson show off his acting chops while also layering on enough
menace to prove that Bryan’s enemies have made a huge mistake. What the film does best, though, is keep moving
during this last hour. There are no dull
bits, only scenes that push Bryan and the plot forward with a clue or
direction. It’s a surprisingly good
film, an A+ action film that under any other circumstances would have been a
B-movie.
That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” Stay tuned for Wednesday’s review of the sequel, Taken 2!
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