Taken (20th Century Fox)
Lot of Action, Little Belief
Liam Neeson stars in the thriller Taken. This is a pulse pounding action adventure that is long on thrills but short on believability. The story concerns a fathers hunt for his daughter who has been kidnapped and is being forced into slavery by an evil group of men. As such it is full of emotion as well as action. Neeson plays the role of avenger with gusto.
Bryan Mills (Neeson) is a retired agent for the government. He has taken early retirement to be close to his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). She lives in LA with his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) and her new husband Stuart (Xander Berkeley).
One day Kim asks her father to have lunch with her. She shows up with her mother in tow to plead her case to go to Paris with a friend. They are to be staying with relatives of the friend. Bryans first reaction is absolutely not as Kim is only seventeen, but her pleas and her mothers insistence that he is being overprotective wears him down. He reluctantly agrees.
The night Kim arrives in Paris she is abducted while talking on the phone with her father. He hears the men talking while they are abducting her. He uses this conversation as a lead while he begins his hunt to find Kim.
The rest of the movie concerns his efforts and methods of finding his daughter. Unfortunately some of the aspects of his investigation dont ring true. Plus he becomes too much of a superman as he battles the bad guys. They are all lousy shots and no one can touch him. He never seems to break a sweat or get a bruise throughout the film.
Neeson is better at portraying the emotions required by the role than in being the superman guy. You feel his agony when his daughter is abducted and you feel his anger when he thinks of what might be happening to her.
Maggie Grace was one of the original survivors on Lost. Once she left that show I lost track of her so it was good to see her in a good role in a popular movie. It was also enjoyable to see Famke Janssen back on the screen in a solid role. She hasnt been seen much since her X-Men days.
The movie is rated PG-13 for violence and profanity.
Taken is a movie you can enjoy as long as you dont ask too many questions, like (1) how can so many people shoot at him and never even scratch him (2) how does he come up with all the badges and equipment he needs when he is in a foreign country and (3) how much adrenaline does it take to keep a person up and running day after day The answers to these questions are not forthcoming and the movie veers into the unbelievable because of it.
I scored Taken a misplaced 6 out of 10.
