taken by rapists, not by aliens [movies]

Taken

Not to be confused with the awful TV miniseries of the same name

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my boy luc besson has done some great work in his day (leon, la femme nikita, the 5th element), but for the last few years he's been churning out a bunch of merde (the transporter, danny the dog). entertaining merde, but merde nontheless. his latest project, taken (which he co-wrote with robert mark kamen) by all appearances seemed like it was going to fall in line with that trend. kamen also co-wrote the transporter with besson and in the director's chair, yet another transporter alumnus, cinematographer pierre morel, seemed to round out the trifecta of over-the-top mediocrity. but whichever wise man once said you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover must have actually been a pretty smart motherfucker because, against all odds, taken is an awesome movie!

usually, i'm not much of a liam neeson fan. something about his delivery just never sits right with me, but i must say, the old bastard really delivers in this movie! he plays bryan, a former CIA spy or something like that, who has given up the life of espionage in order to rebuild his relationship with kim (maggie grace), the teenage daughter he was never really there for growing up. his ex-wife (famke janssen) has married up in the world, sinking her claws into some rich dude who is apparently so rich he just gives thoroughbred horses away as birthday presents to other people's kids, so bryan has effectively been cut out of his daughter's life. boo hoo. however, since she's under 18, kim needs bryan's permission to leave the country so she can go to france for the summer to hang out with her new rich friends, following U2 around on their european tour (meh, kids today and their new fangled rock n' roll music). long story short, the dumb ho flies with her equally dumb hoey friend to paris and ends up getting her ass kidnapped by some albanian gangsters who get her hooked on smack, so they can sell her as a prostitute...bet you weren't expecting that!

let me just state for a moment that i'm not being sexist by calling them "dumb hoes", they really were about as dumb as hoes come. so dumb, in fact, that they were kidnapped literally like 10 minutes after they got to paris. they had "dumb ho" written so clearly across their foreheads that they didn't even give themselves the chance to eat a fuckin' crepe or buy a souvenir beret before they were dragged kicking and screaming into the back of some greasy eastern-european dude's fiat. so ladies, i don't want to receive any insensitivity warning emails from this shit. show this to the most ardent feminist you know and i'm sure they'll concur that these were some unintelligent females preoccupied with a ho-like lust for french cock. simple statement of fact, not at all intended to be offensive. [/public service announcement]

anyway, where was i? ah yes, the dumb hoes get kidnapped...right. so liam neeson, being a former spy, proceeds to use his skills to get his daughter back. that's pretty much it as far as plot goes, but let me tell you that the result is nothing short of satisfying. for about the first 40-45 mins of the movie, everything is pretty timid, you get to know the relationships, the personalities, the general climate of these character's lives and then BAM!, bryan arrives in france and all of a sudden the movie becomes an all out action romp that is made all the more amazing by the fact that you aren't really expecting it at all. from the second liam neeson smashes some random dude's head into the side of a car it kicks into gear and never really lets up.

the action in this film is top notch. you don't get many huge effects sequences or anything like that, just class-A, well executed, well choreographed fighting, stunts, chases and shootouts. the whole time i was watching it i kept thinking, "if the bourne movies had been more like this they probably wouldn't have been so lame" and i think that's a pretty apt way to describe this movie - like the bourne identity if it wasn't lame. liam neeson is basically like jack bauer in old man jeans instead of perfectly weathered fashion denim. he kicks, he punches, he chokes, he kills, he tortures...oh man, does he torture! no cheesy one-liners here, just sheer, unabashed, unapologetic ass kickery. if someone said to you "dude, liam neeson kicks ass and takes names in this movie", you might have a hard time picturing it, as did i, but trust me...it works! he really does a great job. i don't know if he did the fighting and stunts himself, but if he did then the guy really has been making the wrong kinds of movies for all these years.

i don't want to give too much of the awesome stuff away, so i wont go into specific details, but all around this movie is really well made. when the final climactic moment happens, it's intense and it makes you just want to pump your fist in the air, 80s style...and not in that trying-too-hard-to-be-badass kind of way. you get the sense that this guy isn't trying to be a badass, he just is...and that's the best kind of badass to watch on screen.

i'm not going to sit here and lie to you saying this movie avoids all hollywood cliches to present a truly rounded and gripping portrait of the sex trafficking underworld...that would be wrong of me. there are plenty of cliches here - the lone hero trying to impress his estranged family, the bumbling goons of non-american socio-ethnic backgrounds, the convenient plot developments that allow situations to play out with the greatest of ease, the neatly wrapped happy ending...you know, that kind of shit. and sure, the general idea is a little unlikely (take note all you would-be criminals out there, kidnapping well-off american tourists is probably not the best business model for any fledgling vagina smuggling outfit) and the fact that one guy could do all this stuff without consequence is a little over the top (though not entirely impossible), but really...who cares? it is fantasy, after all. if you want a realistic portrayal of the sex trafficking business, go watch some frontline, but if you want a great action movie that takes the general concept and runs with it to create an entertaining piece of...entertainment, then by all means check out taken.