Bond ain't got anything on Liam Neeson.

Rating: 8/10 (26 December 2008)

The latest rescue-slash-revenge film to hit our screens, Taken, tries to walk the fine line between the two classic character archetypes - family man and ultimate badass. When the estranged seventeen year old daughter of a former spy (Liam Neeson) is kidnapped while holidaying overseas, her father must call upon his unique skill set in order to rescue her before she becomes lost to the Eastern-European slave trade.
Liam Neeson kicking ass, and the potential of Maggie Grace showing a little - Taken had my full and undivided attention.
As with the majority of films that limp onto the silver screen these days, everything seems to be a remake of a remake, or at the very least, a rehash of a tired idea. What separates a stock-standard retelling, from something that will stay with you longer than a half-masticated corn kernel stuck in your teeth, will almost certainly come down to the execution. Take a well-worn concept, freshen it up a little, but ultimately pull it off with dedication and skill. While Taken is by no means perfect, it is a prime example of a well-executed retelling. Let's face it, the concept of a tough guys daughter getting kidnapped, and having said tough guy track her down, defeating a million bad guys in the process is hardly anything new. It's basically the plot of Commando, or a dozen similar films for that matter. What Taken does well is to play on this tried-and-true formula; it adds depth to the usual one-dimensional characters, and mixes it up in a giant cocktail shaker with stylistic elements that made films like The Bourne Identity such crowd-pleasers.
Our first encounter with former spy, Bryan, is less than exhilarating. You'd almost expect to see some incredible action set piece from his pre-retirement days, something that adequately introduces our brooding badass' action hero qualifications - negative. What we get is the image of Bryan asleep on the lounge at home, a well-thumbed pamphlet for a karaoke machine on his lap. He's after the perfect gift for his seventeen year old daughter's birthday, and from what we can establish, he's terribly indecisive when it comes to purchasing a present. It's kind of amusing that after less than two minutes of screen time, we've probably already experienced more character development and insight into our main character than we would experience in just about any other similar film. Amusing, and sad. On the surface, Bryan doesn't appear to be that different from you or I, he seemingly has the same faults, shortcomings and fears that we all do. It's not until his daughter is kidnapped that we see an entirely different side of Bryan emerge.
Following on from the initial character development, the film moves quickly onto the search for Kim, Bryan's daughter. With Bryan as our guide, we navigate the murky underworld of Paris, our former spy using every trick in his book to find clues of his daughter's whereabouts. Without giving away too much of the story from this point, our lead character pulls out all the stops. The action set pieces are amazing and uncompromising in their realism and brutality, and while there are occasional moments where the suspension of disbelief is crucial, for the most part it's very much on the money. Guns boom with a satisfying reverb, bullets hit their mark with dead-eye accuracy, and Bryan proves that nothing is sacred when it comes to getting his daughter back alive.
Now I'll be honest and say that Taken wasn't entirely perfect - I did have a few criticisms of the film. My first, and major beef was with our lead characters detective work when it came to tracking-down his daughter - somehow it all seemed far too 'path of least resistance', the quickest way to get from Point A to Point B. Everything felt too easy, even for a man who used to be a highly-trained intelligence operative. Rather than simply moving from one clue to the next, knowing exactly where to go and how to play his cards, I would have preferred to have had another fifteen or so minutes to pad out this side of the story - maybe even throwing in a few failed lines on inquiry just to make it a little more believable. Secondly, there were a few holes in the logic, like a particular scene where Bryan pretends to be a French police officer/intelligence operative, using a completely stock standard American accent - who the hell would buy that? Apparently the bad guys did. And last but not least, I did pick-up on a few editing issues. Take the scene where Bryan collects a fiber of the bad guys clothing - absolutely pointless. Nothing ever came of this scene. However that was minor compared to the most innocuous editing issue - key parts of the kidnap scene that seem to have gone missing. What do I mean? Well, I don't remember the daughter Kim yelling out any information on her attackers, as instructed by her father... yet Bryan seemed to have it all on tape when he passed it off to his CIA buddy for analysis.
Overall, Taken was a pleasant surprise. It's often difficult to tell what to expect from these types of co-funded foreign films, but this one was certainly worth the money. While some of the initial 'detective work' by Neeson's character seemed very effortless and simply the easiest way to get from Point A to Point B, i.e. straight into the action, the action scenes themselves certainly made up for any shortcomings. No punches were pulled. The world our characters inhabited was dark, unforgiving, and morally ambiguous, and as a result, the methods used to get his daughter back were as equally dark, unforgiving, and morally ambiguous. Forget about Bond and Bourne - these guys ain't got anything on Liam Neeson.
Edited excerpt from: www.youseenthat.com