Great Action Movie!

Rating: 9/10 (15 July 2009)

Taken is an action movie which really does justice to the genre—it avoids shallow Hollywood excesses (like ridiculous explosions, expensive cars, and half-naked women) and really focuses on creating a serious, moving piece of cinema. The premise itself is very simple and even conventional, but it works. Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), a former secret service agent, employs his highly developed set of skills to find and rescue his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), who has been kidnapped and sold into the Albanian slave trade while on a visit to Europe.
The film's premise is set up in what feels like the first ten minutes of the movie, and, while the background story and character development seem rushed, the intention is made clear: the movie is about the events that follow—about one man's unrelenting hunt both for his daughter and for revenge upon her kidnappers.
Liam Neeson is a perfect cast for the role of Bryan Mills. He calm, stern, and almost dispassionate in the way he works, bitterly vowing to find and kill the kidnappers. It is clear from the outset that he is ruthlessly professional, a legacy of his training as a government spy. Every move made by Bryan Mills is cold and calculated, which means that the movie never drifts into cliché shootouts where one man infiltrates some warehouse and manages to evade the bullets of countless attackers. Instead the movie's writers respect the viewers' intelligence and opt for a more inventive plot which revolves around Bryan Mills abilities and deadly efficiency. Another point to be made about the writing is that—despite the one against hundreds odds—the viewer never has to suspend their disbelief. Never did I find myself saying "yeah, right" under my breath, and for that matter, neither did I find myself yelling at Bryan Mills or thinking how he could have done things differently. The plot is very, very believable.
Credit must also be given to the director, Pierre Morel, in this regard. It comes as no surprise that the Morel has worked mostly as a cinematographer, as much of the action and fighting is realistic and almost palpable at times. The camera angles, the choreography, and even the sound effects have a gritty, arresting quality to them (in a way that surpasses the Bourne movies), and much of the directing is something foreign to big screen action flicks.
What Taken accomplishes is the best kind of cinematic experience, with refreshingly believable fight sequences, a clever and engaging plot, and some great acting from Liam Neeson. While the movie's subject may be lacking in originality, it taken the best aspects of the action genre and reinvigorated them with a bold sense of realism.
Written by Anton for www.overcranked.net