The Taken Post

Taken is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. It’s a terrific mix of all the action and detective work form the Bourne series (minus the terrible camerawork) mixed with the tense drama moments form traditional thrillers. Liam Neeson is the perfect casting choice for the film, and does not disappoint. His character, Bryan Mills, is an ex-CIA/spy/agent-of-some-sort who had left his old life to live closer to his estranged daughter, whom he lost in a divorce with his now extremely bitchey ex-wife Lenore (played with on-point bitcheyness by Famke Janssen). When said daughter takes a trip outside of the country she is abducted and taken into the flesh-trade ring. Mills is on the phone with her when she is taken, and vows to come after the guys who have taken his daughter. The lines he so calmly delivers down the phone really resonate;

“I don’t know who you are but if you don’t let my daughter go I will find you. I will kill you”.

Neeson’s casting is particularly perfect because he traditionally plays the paternal teacher roles, which he fall into early on in the film, as the kind, well-to-do father who wants nothing more than to be in his daughter’s life. His transition into his former self during his pursuit of his daughter’s captives is paced perfectly, and we see Neeson’s character progress from a father wrapping up a present for a birthday party, to a natural born killer dispatching goons with neck chops and headshots.

The extreme measures his character is willing to go to, to get his daughter back is often chilling, but there is an unavoidable sense of enjoyment when you see that he is willing to take out the scum that he faces (even after he’s got what get needs form them). The movie does an excellent job of making Mills accessible and very likable, but tossing in some edgy curveballs that keep you guessing as to what he is prepared to do.

Neeson’s acting in the beginning of the movie was a, little wooden, probably due to his character’s awkward transition to a normal life, but as a result a few of his lines seemed oddly lacking in charisma. That said I really have nothing negative to say about this film. If Taken can be faulted for anything it’s the lack of hype that went into promoting it. The advertisements that where shown didn’t little more than to highlight the premise of the movie and don’t do an effective job in letting you know how adrenaline-fueled this movie really is. Neeson is 100% bad-ass in this movie- to the degree where the commercials should consist of little more than a montage of flying elbows, car chases and jugular uppercuts.