Licensed to thrill

Rating: 7/10 (17 January 2011)

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), is a divorced former special ops with a beautiful young daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). His career caused him to become detached from his family, but now retired he seeks to at least reconcile himself with his next of kin. This plan hits upon a snag, when Kim begs him to allow her to go to Europe all by herself to rediscover the old continent. Bryan, being an old paranoid secret service freak, projects a bleak and dire vision of the dangers awaiting young pretty girls abroad. Unfortunately for common sense and realism Bryan turns out to be right as Kim gets kidnapped by the Albanian female slave trade upon arrival. Bryan quickly decides to revert to what he does best: killing and causing havoc.
The whole movie is spectacularly awesome. But only if you do your best to ignore the lame and rather ridiculous intro and outro of the thrilling roller-coaster (Americans being kidnapped for slave trade with the knowledge and acceptance of French secret service? Of all the cinematography bull I have been ever sold...). But than again the plot always seemed just to serve as an excuse to the action and the intriguing character of Bryan Mills. Liam Neeson is absolutely brilliant as a tough ex-secret service plus he does the best acting job in action-movie living memory. With a face full of emotion and anger you never doubt in his unwaning bloody conviction.
An additional bonus was the idea behind the lead character himself - a ruthless cold-blooded extremely goal-orientated killing-machine. Unlike many other heroes portrayed in cinema this one has one sole goal - save his daughter. Everything else is either collateral damage or - in the best case scenario - an opportune bonus (saving another girl, killing bad guys and so on). Even when saving a drugged out girl forced into prostitution his ulterior motive was not being a good guy, but extracting information from the victim that may aide his cause. Bryan Mills is basically ruthless and essentially devoid of higher morality, albeit with a code of honour that puts him head and heels above the perpetrators.
Not to mention the absolutely scintillating adrenaline channelling chases, fights and shootouts, which have a brutal in-your-face sense of realism to them. The movie does wander into the unbelievable zone quite often, but even then in manages to punch you in the gut, unlike all the modern CGI fight sequences.
All in all a welcome addition to the action genre and probably one of the most entertaining movies I have seen in a while. I dare you to try and fall asleep to this one.