So anyway, Luc Besson is nothing if not formulaic. With the exception of Léon (which to my eyes is a masterpiece of filmmaking - not that The Professional Americanized pussy-whipped bullshit), pretty much every other film he's either written, directed, or both can be dissected into its parts and ideas that came from earlier films. Presentation on the other hand can change even the most routine idea into something quite special - and Besson excels at presentation (You're entrance was good, his was better. The difference?...SHOWMANSHIP!!!). The Fifth Element had style to burn - despite essentially being the red-headed stepchild of Star Wars, Blade Runner, and The Beatles "All You Need Is Love"; Kiss of the Dragon, while really not much more than an excuse to put Jet Li in a wire-fu action film set in Paris, still had a good deal of warmth and character that a lot of similar films would have just glossed over; we'll try to just forget about The Messenger (aka: A Lame-ass Excuse to Put My Then-Girlfriend in Another Movie...Did I Mention I Used To Fuck Milla Jovovich - Oh Yeah, I Tapped That Shit Baby?!) - everybody gets one mistake. Now we have Taken - the lastest take on the whole "you just fucked with the wrong guy" film.
We've all seen it a dozen times - ex-CIA/Special Forces/über-assassin type has left that world behind; he's struggling with it, but he has his reasons; punk bitches come along and mess with his shit somehow; he fucks them up. Such is the case with Taken, which would be a second-rate first-rate action film if not for the benefit of a tightly-plotted script, and a fantastic performance by Liam Neeson (who you'd never in a million years guess, based on this film, is pushing 60). Such as it is, it's almost a first-rate first-rate action film if not for one nitpick (which I'll get to later). Neeson plays Bryan Mills (coincidentally, I went to high school with a guy with the exact same name...weird - anyway...), recently retired non-descript spook trying to reclaim some of the life he lost saving the world from...whatever. In this case that involves trying to be involved in the life of his 17-year-old daughter (Maggie Grace - most recently of Lost notoriety). I find it funny that such a fuss has been made over Grace appearing too old to be 17. Everyone keeps saying she looks at least 10 years too old for the part - when at the time of filming she was only 24. I suppose people's memories these days are short...considering not that long ago it was common place for 30-somethings to be playing teenagers quite regularly (anyone remember a certain popular TV show with a swanky zip code?). Anyway, when asked by said daughter what is was dad did all those years that kept him away, he says that he was a "preventer"; he prevented bad things from happening - loosely translated: I could kill a guy by stabbing him in the nuts with a toothpick. When Tasty Ex (the always yummy Famke Janssen) and daughter try to get him to sign off on a fun-filled getaway to Paris for the summer, he initially refuses (he knows things...he's seen the world - it's ugly). But he caves, and off daughter goes with bad-influence friend in tow.
A few hours after arriving in gay-Pari, they're swept away (unfortunately literally in this case) by some nefarious types, all while Neeson listens in on the ordeal by way of phone call. Everybody's seen the trailer - you all know the truly kick-ass monologue/ultimatum he delivers to the bad guy on the other end of the phone. Neeson's never struck me as the "don't fuck with me" type, but after that call...I sure as shit wouldn't want to piss him off. He gathers some intel, taps tasty ex's new, rich hubby for a charter flight to France...and away we go. Here's my nitpick. It's quite obvious for several reasons (1: the film is European made/American financed, 2: the trailer tells the careful observer so, 3: the editing feels just feels that way, 4: American distributors of foreign films are usually quite stupid and unaware of their real audience) that this film was trimmed down to a more "family friendly" PG-13 edit. It could be argued that to some degree it worked - the film was #1 at the box-office last weekend. The flip side to that is that they could've just left it alone, taken a chance with an R rating, and people still would have wanted to see it - which I'm inclined to believe. Also, as the film was released in Europe last February, and it's seen its American release date pushed back a couple of times, it would seem that producers wanted/needed time to make it more "accessible" - or in short, they wanted to pussy-fy it. As it is, Neeson's wrath is quite brutal - but being the vicarious, voyeuristic sleaze that I am (and let's face it...most Americans are - whether they'll admit it or not), I wanted a touch more. Necks and other bones crack when they break, bullets cause blood-spatter, people hit by buses and trucks tend to go splat a bit - and there's this underlying feeling all throughout the picture that we're continually denied the money shots.
Still...for what it is, Taken is damned entertaining and engrossing. Besson's (and writing partner Robert Mark Kamen's) script, as directed by DP turned action director Pierre Morel, is teeming with shades of Bourne (can you say shaky-cam boys and girls - and an interesting French variation on a standard Media Ventures score), but that's ok. The end result is still just as satisfying, regardless of the fact that even my 3-year-old son could generally predict where things were going. Even though it's harsh and brutal (and a touch xenophobic), people want to root for Neeson in this, and the (morally questionable) good guys in films like these. We want to watch them as they lay their hammer of justice - their fist of fury - on any mother fucker that's dumb enough to stand in their way. We take solace in knowing that the bad guy's going to get 31 flavors of smack layed down upon him. And Taken delivers in abundance...now, I can't wait for the unrated DVD - THAT...is going to be some brutal shit!
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