It’s the movie that turned Liam Neeson into a legit action hero. It raked in $220 million at the box office, making it the star’s biggest commercial hit. Had it not been for the unfortunate death of his wife (actress Natasha Richardson) during the film’s release, Taken might have seemed the highlight of Neeson’s career as a Movie Star.
[amazon-product align="right" bordercolor="ffffff"]B001TODCII[/amazon-product]Sadly, Taken‘s commercial success is misleading. No, it isn’t a horrible film, but it’s pretty lame. Everything good about it can be found in the trailer, primarily Neeson’s “I will find you” speech. To his credit, Liam elevates what would otherwise be a wretched mess of a flick into something mostly watchable, but there’s only so much he can do. The thing is even competently photographed and edited… the problems all sprout from a plot and script that try to substitute acts of surprising brutality for characterization and momentum for story.
Random thoughts:
- Accepting Maggie Grace as a seventeen year-old after watching her on Lost is difficult at best. She sells it as best she can, but I never fully bought in.
- Famke Janssen‘s ex-wife/mother character is one of the most mono-dimensional shrews in recent movie history. She exists solely as an emotional shortcut for the audience, making it clear that we’re supposed to sympathize with Neeson’s character. Yawn.
- SPOILER: If I ever find myself needing to extract information from a heroin-addicted sex-slave, it’s nice to know that she’ll have perfectly reliable recall after sobering up. It would suck if the whirlwind of abduction, sexual abuse, and drugs rendered his recollections hazy.
- SPOILER: It’s handy for Neeson’s character that his daughter ends up the big prize in the slave auction, since that means she received better care from her captors. But it raises the question of why her prettier friend ended up a corpse in what appears to be a Parisian slave sorority house. I mean, shouldn’t heads roll for killing off such a valuable asset?
- The moral of the story? Daddy is always right. Even when he’s an absentee, controlling, secretive, and apparently obsessive/compulsive bastard.