A man reluctantly lets his teenage daughter take a trip to Paris. As soon as she arrives she a kidnapped (or taken, if you will) by an evil white slavery ring. Luckily she was on the phone to her father at the time and manages to scream out a description of her attackers. Even more lucky – her father is a retired “fixer” for the US government with the skills to take on a small army. He quickly flies to Paris and sets about finding his daughter using the time-honored shoot-everything-in-sight technique.
A bog standard revenge film, Taken does little to distinguish itself except by being a little more brutal than average. The hero kills and tortures dozens of nameless people to get his idiotic daughter back. Sure, “dey were all bad” (read the previous phrase in an Austrian accent) but half the people killed were only tangentially involved. Of course, the police are no help and are actively working against him – the city of Paris should sue the producers for defamation.
In short, not one of Stephen Seagals best films.
What did you say?
It’s a Liam Neeson movie?
No way!
Not recommended unless you really, really like this sort of thing.
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You’re obviously on drugs dude – bad ones. Taken is far superior to anything that Steven Seagal has produced since Under Seige. Choosing Liam Neeson was brilliant because he normally isn’t the sort of guy you’d think would lead a movie like this.
The conversation with the daughter and the bad guys I thought was unique and well executed. And he was WAY harder, colder and more brutal that most protagonists are in these sorts of films.
I agree, there’s not much in the way of twists and turns in the film, but there are a few, I just think the way it was shot, acted and executed puts it leagues above anything produced by Hollywood in years – given it’s genre.
I suggest it’s definitely worth taking a look at.
Remember everyone, Andrew actually owns “Blood On Satan’s Claw” which should give you a rough indication of his movie reviewing credentials
Andrew owning “Blood On Satan’s Claw” is my bad – I grew up with that stuff, the same way you guys grew up with action movies that I can’t stand. Personally I think within the genre it’s better than average, but not in say “The Wicker Man”‘s league. However I do disavow all movie reviewing credentials. Where’s the music section ?
Sorry Nigel, Blood on Satan’s Claw is terribly dull. In fact you are currently batting on two strikes in the film recomendation stakes (I still haven’t forgiven you for Zardoz several years ago.) On the other hand, Spartacus is cool so that trip to Real Groovy wasn’t a total waste.
Aaron, I am not sure what you are on about with Taken. Sure it looks good, but its basically the same movie as any number of low budget action flicks. In comparison to recent movies like the Bourne trilogy or the recent James Bond, it just looks tired and silly.
Still, Faith liked Taken so maybe it’s just me.
Do people judge films in different ways ? Aaron mentioned shooting, acting, and execution as being worthy of merit in themselves. I don’t generally register cinematography explicitly, and I’m a lousy judge of acting and don’t notice it unless it’s exceptionally bad. But for me a film has to work as a whole, just having certain aspects of it being good is insufficient. I think that makes film making a tremendously tough undertaking – so many people are involved and by and large they all need to do their jobs well for the film to ‘work’. The number of films I’ve thought have been amazing is very small compared to the number of pieces of music I regard the same way, but perhaps that’s just because my affinity for music is much greater.
Anyway, I found both the latest Bourne and Bond (that was the first Daniel Craig one) tedious – so there ! Also is “Under Siege” really the gold standard of action films ? If so there really is no hope of me ever liking action. However I did reasonably enjoy the first Bourne if I remember correctly.
It is you, believe me.
The latest bond I found flat and predictably boring. Taken on the other hand, while I fully expected him to find his daughter and kill the bad guy, took me to that point in an interesting way with a freshness to the characters. Sort of like Crash with Jason Stratham did. Basically an action flick inspired by a unique premise.
Oh, and Nigel, I wouldn’t ever say that Under Seige is the gold standard of action flicks but Steven Seagals action flicks were the first ones I saw where the hero wasn’t a perfect fighter. He was tough and kick arse but his style was quite messy and often got smacked around a lot himself in the process.
People certainly look for different things in films. Speaking for myself, I find that films with no position on things or overall theme are getting less watchable as I get older. For instance, staying with the action genre: Aliens is about motherhood, Terminator 2 is about fate (or the lack of) and responsibility, Robocop is about unfettered capitalism (ditto Alien to a degree), Total Recall is about identity.
Taken flirts with idea that it is about fatherhood; apart from the main character several other character’s children are seen or mentioned. It doesn’t do a very good job of making this theme central to the plot, there is no contrast shown between how the different fathers behave.
If Taken had spent 2 minutes with the French dude telling the main character that he only took bribes to pay for his son’s operation (or something) then the main character’s actions and motivations could be seen in a different light and the film would be more interesting.
Under Siege I would regard as just OK, but better than Taken though for much the same reasons as Aaron mentioned.
I really enjoyed the film and I’m usually quite critical. Sure, in part that was due to the low standard that I was expecting from the film. But I found Neeson’s character to be naturally dynamic. One of the best films I’ve seen lately.
This ‘Blood on Satans claw’ sounds like something I must see!
And WHAT is wrong with Zardoz!?!?! Thats an absolute classic!