TAKEN (2008)

"It was all personal to me."

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)

JOYSTICKS (1983)

One year before the uptight citizens of the town in FOOTLOOSE got all upset about teenagers dancing, the upright citizens of the town in JOYSTICKS got all upset about teenagers playing video games.  Local business man Joe Don Baker is pissed off about the video arcade, especially since his daughter spends so much time there.  So he and his two bumbling nephews set out to have it closed down by whatever means necessary.  But the kids aren't gonna stand for that!  Hell no!

I'm not exactly sure why, but for whatever wonderful reason I believe that JOYSTICKS, TERRORVISION and SURF II are the Holy Trinity of silly, low-budget, teen comedies of the 80's.  Based on the IMDb ratings (3.2, 5.2 and 2.9 respectively) it appears that the general public doesn't agree with my love, but oh well. For some reason these films just click with me and even after dozens of viewings I still love them dearly.  Can you relate?

Video games, short shorts, farting, punk hair, mini-motorcycles, 80's fashions, lots of topless moments, S & M, mud wrestling, cheesy humor, but best of all JOYSTICKS has...King Vidiot!!!  Jesus Christ this guy is great.  Vidiot is a punk who along with his four female minions pester the kids who hang out at the arcade.  They eventually team up with Joe Don to try and close down the arcade.  What makes him so great is Jonathan Gries over the top performance.  I can't even explain how awesome this guy is.  I wish he had his own movie!  Luckily though he played a very similar character in TERRORVISION.

In the commentary director/producer Greydon Clark (yes, the same Greydon Clark who played Acid in SATAN'S SADISTS) says the film costs $250,000 and opened #1 in the box office.  I have no idea if that's true or not, the listing on Box Office Mojo shows it opening in 8th place at only 310 screens, but still it made money.

Highly recommended to those with a sense of humor and a love for the 80's.