Taken – This Week’s Guilty Pleasure at the Movies

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a retired secret agent now living in the United States. Recently divorced, his days are spent taking it easy, and trying to get close to his 17 year-daughter Kim, who lives with her mother and ultra rich step-dad. Bryan is the type of guy whose years on the force have made him suspicious of the things he sees around him. For this reason, he is a bit hesitant to permit his daughter to travel to Paris with friends. Within minutes of arriving at their Parisian flat, Kim and her friend are abducted by a group of masked men. Kim manages to connect with her Dad right up until the kidnappers break into the bedroom and steal Kate. Using a 15 second phone recording that contains the voices of these masked men, Bryan is able to ascertain their language, jobs, boss, location, and wherabouts. I’m not kidding. 15 seconds. From here the tale of vengance kicks in as the audience is expected to gleefully watch our hero beat criminals to a pulp using a variety of skills he has acquired that include wire tapping, car-flipping, French speaking, wind-pipe severing, electrocuting, and the ever-popular espinoage. The only point of the film seems to be that there is virtually no situation that is even remotely too hard for Bryan to get out of. Seconds before the abductor takes Kim, Bryan warns him on the phone of the impending doom he and his accomplices will face if they do not return his daughter. The next hour and half completely deliver that promise. There are no stakes, and virtually no consequences connected to Bryan’s vengeful path of destruction. Unfortunately, the massive number of bodies that begin to pile up serve not only as collateral damage for Bryan’s mission, but for the flimsy plot as well.
Taken is the kind of rare movie that you face as a film “critic” that is hard to digest. It finds itself in that confusing territory of a movie that is fairly well made and actually fun to watch at times, but at the same time completely forgettable and unoriginal. I guess you might call it a guilty pleasure. For what it does, it does right. It raises your adrenaline for a minute or two, not allowing you to look away from the screen. If that is the only thing you are looking for, then enjoy. If not, you won’t be disappointed to see what’s playing next door.

2.5/5