"Taken" is the type of movie that will either strongly attract or strongly repel anyone who watches it. Some will be enthralled by the relentless action, while others will bang their heads in regards to how stupid it is. I'm somewhere in the middle. Though "Taken" is definitely loud and dumb, with way too many conveniences, it's also satisfying as a throw-away piece of loud and dumb entertainment. Brian Mills (Liam Neeson, unleashing his inner bad-ass) is an ex-spy who lives in Los Angeles to try and repair his relationship with his somewhat estranged daughter (Maggie Grace). Making matters harder for Brian is the fact that his bitch of an ex-wife (Famke Jannesen) has remarried a ridiculously wealthy man and tries to keep the daughter away from Brian. Eventually, Brian gets a chance to see her, but when he does, she's asking if she can go with a friend to Paris for a few weeks. At first wary, Brian lets her go, but only if she calls him every day. Of course, once there, things go wrong. A seemingly innocent encounter at the airport in Paris leads to Brian's daughter and her friend being captured by an Albanian crime ring that specializes in selling young women as prostitutes. Having been on the phone with his daughter at the moment of the kidnapping, Brian tells the man who takes to phone that, "I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you", to which the man simply replies, "Good luck".
From there Brian uses the help of some of his other ex-spy friends and finds out that he has roughly 96 hours before his daughter will virtually disappear off the face of the earth, and he sets of to Paris. Once he does, the proceedings are pretty standard. Find a piece of information, track someone down, get into a fight and/or car chase. While the action sequences are well staged and well edited, and Neeson's "Brian" makes Jason Bourne look like a pansy, there's just nothing terribly original about any of it. The set up, though a bit sluggish, is acceptable because it makes you care more about Brian's journey than you probably should, but overall, it's just run-of-the-mill revenge fare that just happens to star an A-list actor. So if you're looking for a smart, intricate thriller filled with twists and turns, you'll be disappointed, but if you're just looking for a middle-of-the-road, mindless action flick, then "Taken" might be worth your time, even if it is totally disposable.Warning: Viewing this film may cause sudden fear of Liam Neeson. Seriously, the guy is actually a pretty kickass action hero....
Grade: C+
Number of 2009 films seen: 1
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