When some sex slave traffickers kidnap ex-CIA operative dude Liam Neeson's daughter, he goes all Arnold Schwarzenegger from COMMANDO on their bootyholes and starts fucking shit up left and right. The End.
I enjoyed TAKEN quite a bit. The opening build-up relayed all of the pertinent information quickly. After that, it was just Neeson running around Paris beating the shit out of people. Yeah, there's multiple problems with the story, but who really cares? The main attraction here is to see Liam Neeson handing out free knuckle-sandwiches and that he does. He's a great action star.
As usual, I'm always hoping that a movie is darker than it usually is and TAKEN is no different. I think from a story standpoint, a couple of A SERBIAN FILM touches would have worked wonders in showing exactly how dangerous the bad guys were, but that never happened. Exhilarating car chases, emotional kidnapping scene, zero nudity, tons of shooting with no bloody wounds, a brief scene at the beginning shows that Liam's ex-CIA coworker was Jon Gries (King Vidiot from JOYSTICKS!), torture, fighting scenes with editing so quick and the camera so close that you have a hard time following what's happening, just a series of bad guys and no main boss fight at the end, nice location shooting in California and Paris.
TAKEN was a fun film. Definitely worth a watch for action fans. I'm hoping in part 2 they include Neeson's friends in on the action! How awesome would that be to see King Vidiot running around getting his blast on, shooting people...and kicking bicycles.
Part 2 - Taken 2 (2012)
Part 3 - Taken 3 (2014)
