Taken - Action Stripped To The Bone

Feb

5

Taken - Action Stripped To The Bone

≡ Category: Action, France, Movie Reviews By Country, Recommended |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: France
Genre: Action
Director: Luc Besson
Year: 2008

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE

There are only two things wrong with Taken: director Pierre Morel and the PG-13 rating.

Director Pierre Morel sticks closely to the Bourne Ultimatum action template, having editor Frédéric Thoraval cut like a madman, and directing cinematographer Michel Abramowicz to move the camera jerkily around, so that what we get most of the time is not action itself, but the impression of action. That’s too bad because the fight choreography by Olivier Schneider appears to be pretty good. The reason for this slam bang editing and filming style is mainly commercial. In order to avoid an R rating, and increase profits, an action movie has to give the impression of being hard hitting. The Bourne method gives that impression without the need for graphic violence, which would result in an R rating.

The only trouble with that solution is that Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen have written a wonderfully greasy, disreputable Dad saves his little girl from the clutches of filthy Arabs type of story. It begs for a satisfactory comeuppance for the villains, which Besson and Kamen could have easily come up with. Stuff like people getting hit in the face with a board studded with rusty nails. Getting chewed up by a boat propeller. Losing their arm when it’s caught between a passing bus and a traffic sign. Getting ripped in half by…you get the point. Taken should be dag nasty. The audience as a whole should exhale and wince at least half a dozen kill scenes.

Screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen do their jobs. The script dispenses with pretty much all of the typical exposition. Almost all of the scenes have a payoff, whether emotional or physical. In terms of getting from one action sequence to the next, the script for Taken is probably about the most efficient I’ve ever seen. The dialog is very good, of it’s kind. The sequence in which Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) coaches his daughter over the phone on what do while she’s being kidnapped accomplishes several things. It’s incredibly tense, it establishes Mills’ coolness and professionalism under pressure, and it sets up a number of plot devices.

Much has been made of Taken’s lack of realism. For example, by analyzing a tape of the kidnapping call, Mills is able to pinpoint the village that the speakers come from, and even the name of one of the speakers. As unlikely as it seems, it is possible to place a speaker very close to where he grew up on the basis of speech. I remember somebody doing it on a television show when I was a kid. Besides, the criticism kind of misses the point. Taken is obviously a daddy Rambo fantasy. Of course it’s absurd. But the filmmakers take their fun seriously enough not to make it patently absurd.

Critics don’t seem to have a problem with a flick like Transporter 2, in which the hero drives his car into the air and turns it upside down so that a hook can dislodge the explosive device placed on the undercarriage of the car. In fact, they applaud the absurdity because it gives them an excuse to stop looking at the movie critically and just poke fun at it.

On the other hand, Taken takes it’s fantasy seriously enough to make it’s events borderline plausible. Sure, Mills couldn’t possibly take on as many trained killers as he does in Taken and live through the ordeal, but at any one moment, he doesn’t engage in any behavior that’s physically impossible, just unlikely.

To sell this scenario, the filmmakers have made the inspired decision to cast Liam Neeson as the rampaging papa. He has the physical presence to make it believable, and he’s such a good actor that he gives Taken a gravity that it probably doesn’t deserve. The rest of the leads are serviceable, if not quite as adroit. Maggie Grace is appropriately silly as Kim, the daughter who goes on a jaunt to Europe against daddy’s better judgement. Famke Janssen is fine as the brittle ex-wife. Xander Berkeley is irritating but not hateful as the rich as Midas stepdad who Mills has to compete with. But where casting directors Ferne Cassel and Nathalie Cheron really shine is in the various stooges and lowlifes that Mills plows through to get to his kidnapped daughter. They’re all distinctive and grimy, especially Arben Bajraktaraj as Marko, the Albanian scumbag behind the kidnapping, and Nabil Massad as Sheik Raman, the oily and obese pervert who is willing to pay big bucks to bust the cherries of drug addled virgins.

So, what does Taken add up to? It’s an entertaining and energetic thriller, but the action in Taken lacks the clarity and mean spirited edge that would really put it over the top. It’s too bad that Taken wasn’t directed by writer Luc Besson himself, who knows how to make these films. Taken could have been an exploitation classic, but it’s content to merely be amusing.