Friday, January 30, 2009

Taken


** Stars

Taken is one of those films that both baffles and shakes my senses at the same time. A plot so ridiculous and improbable that it not only breaks the rules of reality, but fails to mention them all together. If all you want out of Taken is 93 minutes of Liam Neeson kicking the absolute piss out of human beings, then your guilty pleasure is fulfilled.

As much as I enjoyed Neeson letting loose, I must say that I found the actions of every character in the film rather unsettling. The story is about two innocent girls (one being Neeson's daughter) who are kidnapped just moments after arriving in Paris for vacation. I don't even know if kidnapped is even the right word for this situation, so we'll go with the title: they were TAKEN. Sold off for prostitution, drugged to the point of unconsciousness, and threatened to be erased off the face of the earth. Enter the innocent girl's father, who takes matters into his own hands. While on the phone with his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), she tells him that people are coming to get her. Liam, knowing exactly what to do, tells her to give him as many details as possible before she is TAKEN (just picture the movie preview guy's voice everytime I write this). Kim climbs under a bed and hides from the bad guys. After moments of silent suspense, she is pulled from under the bed and TAKEN. Now Liam is pissed...

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you. "

Liam hops into his car, gets on a plane, and prepares himself for a vengeful journey through the country of Europe. Better put, Europe better prepare itself for Liam Neeson.

That's all all you need to know. There's nothing else to analyze about this film rather than commenting on the ridiculousness of Liam Neeson's karate-chopping, gun-slinging, pile-driving, speed-racing, torture-inducing, Holocaust-surviving, Qui-Gon Jinn persuading, trained Batman like set of special skills put into action. It doesn't even matter that you know his character's name, because you are not watching a character, you are watching LIAM NEESON.

At the theater I went to, people were laughing, cheering, and rooting all the way through. I admit that I was right along side with them, but there is no way anyone can say that TAKEN has a legitimately well crafted story. Then again, those people won't be flocking to see TAKEN anyways. You'll never be bored with this film, but your logic will suffer.