It's funny, interesting and/or a sign of mental slowing when one can only think of a certain character type for performers who have handled a variety of roles throughout their careers. Take Liam Neeson, for instance. When I see him I think of Oskar Schindler, the unlikely hero of "Schindler's List," followed by the title character in "Kinsey" or the lovelorn dad in "Love Actually."
None of which automatically scream out action hero. So, when I saw that the 56-year-old actor was going to play just that in "Taken," the fit didn't seem good until I remembered he's done some degree of action in a fair number of his films, ranging from "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" to "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Rob Roy." Heck, he was even the lead in the superhero movie "Darkman," but yes, that was when he was a spryer thirty-eight years of age.
All of which shows the power of the movies to make one believe in some make-believe. Not to discredit Neeson or anyone else of his age, but one doesn't exactly picture someone like him kicking some major booty in the hyper-kinetic way that he does here (unlike say, Matt Damon who was similarly turned into an unlikely but completely believable action hero in the "Bourne Identity" films).
All of which says that with the proper intent on the part of the performer, director (Pierre Morel) and especially the editor (Frédéric Thoraval), most anything can become believable, and here it's easy to buy Neeson as the highly efficient, villain disposing dad in search of his kidnapped daughter (Maggie Grace in a one-dimensional role).
It's too bad the same can't be said about the screenplay by Robert Mark Kamen & Luc Besson, the latter of whom has made a career of churning out hard-hitting action pics like this one. Simply put, the way in which Neeson's character -- regardless of his past CIA training and expertise -- goes about collecting clues and always being one step ahead of everyone else is more than just a bit far-fetched.
Had Morel and company gone the action-camp route, that would have been one thing. While there are laughs to be had (although clearly of the unintentional variety), this presumably is supposed to play out as a straight action thriller. Alas, the preposterousness keeps piling up to such heights that none of it can be taken seriously.
It doesn't help that the villains (who also keep piling up as they lead from one group to the next) are barely personified (beyond being labeled as Albanian or through appearances, Arab), or that the daughter character doesn't really give us reason to care about her as deeply as we should (except by default as she's been kidnapped and drugged into the sex slave trade).
All of that said, however, if one can manage to overlook or just accept some/all of that, the pic actually turns into something of an occasionally deliriously fun bit of vigilante-style escapist mayhem, where the viewer may just get a kick or two out of the often brutal ways in which the hero takes care of business. Although the far-fetched developments, ploys and such usually bring one back to reality, the way in which those in front of and behind the camera present the over-the-top and decidedly hard-hitting (but relatively blood-free) action results in something of a giddy, cathartic release.
None of which remotely means it's anything akin to high art, even for the genre in which it exists. Yet, for what it's trying to be -- something of an updated version of "Commando" or any thematically related movie in which a highly trained parent tries to find and rescue their kidnapped child -- the pic works fairly well.
It certainly shows the power of editing in making what should seem unbelievable fairly credible. If only some similar emending could have been performed on the script -- in terms of making the characters more dimensional and the various tactics and occurrences more plausible -- this might have ranked up there with some of the better action films of recent. As it stands, it can be that, as long as one shuts off most higher functioning above the shoulders and simply reacts from a more instinctual and/or reflexive standpoint. "Taken" rates as a 4 out of 10.
![[Screen It]](/images/underground_header.jpg)