I really wish there was a lot to say about Taken, because I did enjoy the film, but other than "it's a lean, efficient action movie," there's not much to add. For you guys, I'll try though.
When I first saw the ads for Taken, what surprised me was how many people I knew seemed surprised to see Liam Neeson playing the "bad ass" character. I guess I never thought of him as the sensitive dude who doesn't fight, so that reaction was a little weird.Admittedly, I don't have much justification for this: yes, Neeson was a Jedi in one of the worst Star Wars prequels, and he was Rob Roy which involves some degree of swashbuckling. Then again, he does do all kinds of "period" films like Les Miserables and Schindler's List where he broods and steals bread.
I think what many of you forget is that when he's not Love Actually-ing it up, he's brutally murdering people in small roles like Kingdom of Heaven and Gangs of New York*. While technically a voice, it's hard to call Aslan a total wuss, no matter how anemic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is. More importantly, Liam Neeson was Darkman. Maybe I am totally justified after all**.
Anyway, Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired "preventer" ex-military whatever. At the expense of his family (ex-wife Famke Janssen and way too old to be 17 year old daughter Maggie Grace), he spent the better part of his life wandering around in countries doing things that he can't tell people about. Since we all know the movie is about his daughter being, well, taken, we the audience will at some point see Bryan go "bad ass" on the kidnappers. Taken realizes that we don't have all day to wait around for this, so they dispense with the family strain quickly and then move on to the "how tough is this guy" trope.
This means, in action movie terms, we need two scenes: 1) a get together with his "team" to demonstrate their bad ass stories, and 2) a sequence to demonstrate that his "particular set of skills" alluded to in the trailer are still intact. We get both in rapid succession as his pals (including personal favorites John "Real Genius" Gries and Leland "Se7en" Orser***) come over for a cookout and then talk him into "one more mission."
This mission, however, is the closest thing to a subplot Taken ever has. Mills ends up saving some pop star from a would be murderer and she gives him her phone number. See, Mills knows that his daughter wants to be a singer and rather than take advantage of his single status, he decides to give his daughter the phone number so she can take lessons from the pop star. See? Bet you didn't hear about that part of the movie.
But we all know that's not what happens. Instead Maggie Grace goes to Paris (against Bryan's better judgment) and gets herself kidnapped. Just so that we like Liam Neeson's negligent dad more than Famke Janssen's remarried mother, there are two scenes of her giving him hell for not wanting their daughter wandering around Europe following U2. Bryan is such a class act that even when she's kidnapped, he doesn't say "see, I told you so", he just starts gathering information.
And that's pretty much it. I keep wanting to compare this movie to Commando but then I have to weed out all of the unnecessary turns. His team doesn't get picked off by a traitor. There is no Rae Dawn Chong character. There aren't any puns or plot twists. Taken has not twists to speak of, unless you count the French secret police being crooked as a twist. Mills goes to France and in short order tracks down everyone involved in his daughter's kidnapping. He maims, cripples, or kills all of them, including people who are only involved in ancillary ways, like the wife of the crooked cop or a bouncer for the "sex slave" underground bidding club.
When I say that Taken is lean and efficient, I mean it. Luc Besson and Rober Mark Kamen wrote a script that doesn't waste time on anything else. Once we've established the necessary information in the US to know Mills is a bad ass, we move to France where he demonstrates it with as little necessary dialogue as possible. I do like that Mills goes the extra mile to make sure he really gets the right bad guys.
For example, if you've seen the trailer, then you know that Neeson gives his "I'm going to kill you" spiel on the phone and the Albanian kidnapper replies "Good luck." In order to find the correct guy, Neeson buys an Albanian to English dictionary, writes down "Good Luck" in Albanian, and then tricks the bad guy into translating it for him. So what does Mr. "Good Luck" get for his translating skills? Sewing needles through his thighs.
That alone would have been mean enough, but Mills uses those as a way to electrocute the guy into getting information. And since Mr. "Good Luck" thinks he's tough, Neeson promises to "keep it going until they shut off the power for non-payment", and then does just that. He leaves the guy there, screaming, and moves on.
In a way, Taken is kind of like if you took Commando and then stripped it down to Punisher: War Zone simplicity. Only it's not as silly as the former or as violent as the latter. Taken does exactly what the trailer promises it will do and nothing more. And sometimes that's enough.
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Remember, you have a few days left to vote on what I watch next week. Right now there's a three way tie, so be that tie breaker!
* Another problem may be that most of you haven't seen Kingdom of Heaven and forgot that Liam Neeson was in the beginning of Gangs of New York. I can't really explain the Darkman thing though.
** He also plays "Father" in Fallout 3 which many regular readers pester me about playing.
*** The name might not register, but check the face. I had to include Se7en rather than Alien Resurrection only because he's credited as "Crazed Man in Massage Parlor", rather than "guy that Kevin Spacey puts the spiked codpiece on."
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