Taken Liam Neeson a Likely New Action Hero
Action Movie Starring Liam Neeson May Be the Best Film of 2008
Nov 8, 2008
Movies beginning with photos of a daughter’s birthday seldom get exciting. This is the one exception. Taken is the latest movie bringing together talent from The Fifth Element and The Transporter - Robert Mark Kamen and French director Luc Besson co-write the script, and Pierre Morel directs. The result is an adrenaline-pumping thriller that takes the audience on a journey through a prostitution syndicate from the word ‘go’.
Even the trailer is inspired. Liam Neeson, a somewhat unlikely action hero, carries off the role of ex-government ‘preventer’ Bryan with aplomb. In the trailer, against all audience expectation, Bryan advises his grown-up daughter Kimmy who is about to be kidnapped that “here’s the important part. They’re going to take you”. The shocking trailer is just the tip of the iceberg of a film that does not disappoint. In fact, Taken may be the best action movie of 2008, with echoes of Matt Damon in the Jason Bourne trilogy.
Bryan the Preventer
Bryan (Liam Neeson) is fast losing his daughter Kimmy (played by Maggie Grace) to his estranged wife’s new family, a very wealthy one. Kimmy’s new replacement father easily affords her a horse, while Bryan can only look on with the karaoke set he scrimped to buy. Bryan’s ex-secret service friends gather casually round the barbeque to reveal Bryan’s previous incarnation as a ‘preventer’, a career he forsook to move nearer to his daughter. This ingenious situational plot, played engagingly by Neeson, draws the audience into his collapsing world, which turns on its head quickly when Bryan is revealed to be a very tough character indeed.
Kimmy conspires with mommy (a sharp performance by Famke Jansson) to get daddy Bryan’s signature, so she and her naive friend Amanda can go chasing celebrities in France. Big mistake as she soon finds out. Kimmy is dragged off by an Albanian syndicate which sells girls as slaves to filthy rich bidders. The scary thing about Taken is how close to truth it is. With people going missing every year and murder stories on foreign ground on the increase, the movie is somewhat of a stern reminder to youngsters that it is good to be cautious abroad.
Violence in Taken
The fun only just begins. When Bryan goes on a tireless pursuit of his kidnapped daughter Kimmy, through his French police contact Jean Claude, he leaves a lot of dead people on this trail. Taken is not sparing with the violence and more than once Bryan’s victims meet a terrifying end, to the squeamishness of the audience. But Pierre Morel’s intuitive direction is spot on. The violence is not over the top, considering that the insidious slave trade is ten times more unforgiving. It is sickening to see how well-sponsored the prostitution syndicate turns out to be, with rich bidders flipping from girl to girl like a catalogue.
Like the Bourne trilogy, Bryan is a tough secret serviceman with human failings. He longs for his daughter, tries to persuade Lenore his ex-wife he is genuine but fails at every attempt. Famke Janssen puts in a very strong performance as the cynical Lenore, whose classy demeanour masks her damaged past with Bryan. Maggie Grace as Kimmy is the typical hyperactive American college girl, not as naive as her friend Amanda, but just as vulnerable. Sadly her friend Amanda does not escape alive, but Bryan chases to retrieve Kimmy till the end. The earlier part of the film also features Holly Valance as a diva singer under Bryan’s protection at a concert. It is a strong plot device, showing off Bryan’s cool while foreshadowing the main plot, where his daughter’s safety is snatched away.
Action Hero Liam Neeson
The action is thoroughly explosive, and does not rely on car chases or big budget to deliver. In one scene, Bryan bursts in while Jean Claude (Olivier Rabourdin) is having dinner with his wife. As Neeson tends to play brooding, intelligent characters, he delivers quite a shock to the audience when his character makes a rapidly violent decision against his friend Jean Claude. He gatecrashes into an Albanian cover, pretending to be a corrupt French authority. He even scales buildings, parkour-style. Director Pierre Morel chooses action over words where they are unnecessary. Such astute direction, a relentless plot and well-developed characters make Taken one of the best films of 2008. Liam Neeson’s Bryan is an intense and very watchable action hero, who makes action look intelligent, and would certainly draw audiences in any sequel to this movie.
- Taken
- Starring Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Olivier Rabourdin
- Written by Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen
- Directed by Pierre Morel
- Running time: 93 minutes
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