It's no "Man on Fire" but it's good

Rating: 7/10 (30 June 2013)

I gave this movie a 7 rating based upon Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) and his die hard tactics alone. At the beginning of this flick I was ready to pull the plug and call it a bust, but I'm glad I hung in there. Still, the only compelling part of this movie was Bryan Mills' tenacity, resourcefulness and ability to kick a**. The movie started very slow and uninteresting. I'm well aware that movies need some character build up time, but I found that I didn't like the characters. When a spoiled girl, with the help of her mother, lies to trick her father into letting her go to Paris with another equally young and naive girl only to be kidnapped... we tend to say: you make your bed you lie in it. You reap what you sow is also applicable. In other words, all that was going through my head was, "far less deserving girls have gotten kidnapped and I'm supposed to care about you?" So, to start, I wasn't all that sympathetic nor was I moved to fully root for Bryan Mills to buck all odds.
My attitude soon changed. It didn't change because I saw the purity and innocence of his daughter, it changed once I began to see the sheer creepery (or should I say creepness?) of the characters involved in the kidnapping. Then, and only then, did I want to see faces smashed, pain inflicted and overall destruction. I don't think it was Liam Neeson's acting so much as it was the script that depicted Bryan Mills utter desperation and at-all-costs willingness to get his daughter back.
This movie was a cross between Hostel and Man on Fire and it was still able to have a unique enough flare to separate it from those two. A vigilante film done well is always good in my book