Taken Movie Review

*repost from 01/21/2009

Directed by Pierre Morel

Written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen

Starring Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace and Famke Janssen

Available in non U.S. regions on dvd already and released in theaters in U.S. on January 30th, 2009

This movie came out of nowhere and kicked me square. I had this movie for a few months but never got around to watching it. Finally I saw a commercial last week that it was coming to theaters. So I dug it out and watched it. A quick hour and a half later I had a big grin on my face. This movie was way better than I was expecting. Its a great, tight, straight laced action flick.

The plot is simple. Liam plays a Dad that quits his government special forces job so he can be close to his estranged daughter he rarely got to see grow up. The daughter gets an invitation to go visit Paris for the summer with one of her friends. Reluctantly he lets her go with the stipulation that she keep close contact with him. While in Paris they are targeted for kidnapping and sold to prostitution or slavery. The daughter Kim calls Liam to tell him that the kidnappers are in the house about to take her. He calmly gives her instructions on what to do and finally tells the kidnapper that he will hunt him down and kill him. The rest of the movie is Liam over in Paris kicking ass and taking names.

This is one of the best roles Ive ever seen in Liam in. And thats saying a hell of a lot. He plays a calm collected angry father/special agent to perfection. He has a quiet innocence in the scenes where he's a father and a controlled rage when he's the agent. The fighting/hand to hand combat is top notch. Very similar to the style in the Bourne Identity and the new Bond movies. In this movie there is shaky cam but its done much better and clearer than those movies. The gunplay scenes are pretty cool and the car chase is even well done. I liked the side view slow mo angle in particular when he rams this car down a hill. Overall there were a lot of cool kills and good ol violence.

Some of the dialogue is a little corny but nothing that really takes away from the movie. I have a feeling that Luc Besson had a pretty big part in shaping the movie. It is edited very tight and has a short running time.

This is defintely the first great action movie of 2009. I really liked that it had a simple plot and wasnt too overly complicated with all these unnecessary subplots and ludicrous plot twists. It is getting high ratings on Imdb and I have a feeling that critics will have overall positive reviews. Lets just hope word of mouth spreads so the movie can make some well deserved jack.

On a scale of 1-10 I give this a chop to the throat 8.2 out of 10.

Trailer (minor spoilers)