You're Not Getting Older, You're Getting DEADLIER...

Rating: 8/10 (1 March 2009)

Okay, so before I even start this one, let's go over all the quibbles, shall we? First and most noticeable is LOST'S Maggie Grace allegedly playing a teenager. We all know she probably was a little more "mature" than even her character on the infuriatingly obtuse ABC hit, but did we care then? No, we didn't, so why all the fuss now? The cast of the original 90210 were a bunch of college-age (or WAY past college-age) actors playing teens, too, and that was still a hit. So to those nitpickers, get a life already.
Next is the script. Dialogue that's less than cerebral? Check. Plot holes you could drive a Mack truck through? Double-check. That feel of trying to go after Matt Damon's BOURNE franchise and steal some of its audience? Check, check and check again. But then this movie is co-produced by Luc Besson (THE PROFESSIONAL, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, THE LAST COMBAT) who wrote TAKEN'S script with Robert Mark Kamen (THE KARATE KID) and was directed by Pierre Morel (the 'parkour'-infused post-apocalyptic thriller DISTRICT B-13.) If you came to this party expecting Bergmann or Bunuel, my friend, you just walked into the wrong freakin' party.
Once you've adjusted your suspension of disbelief accordingly, you will realize what the true pleasure of TAKEN really is - and that's watching renowned, Oscar-and-Tony-nominated stage and screen actor Liam Neeson, now close to 60, step into the same arena as Damon, Jason Statham, Daniel Craig and his action-hero contemporary, Harrison Ford, and kick ass and take names with a panache that would make Jack Bauer beam with admiration. At least that's what I enjoyed the most about it.
Neeson plays former government-operative-turned-security-consultant (read: bodyguard) Bryan Mills. Long retired from the more active aspect of his trade, he spends his time trying to maintain some facade of civility with his ex-wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen doing well in yet another thankless role) and her new rich gasbag of a husband (Xander Berkeley, ditto), so he can still maintain close ties with the one thing in his life that matters: his daughter, Kim (Grace.)
When Kim and her BFF are allowed to take an ill-advised European vacation that delivers them right into the clutches of some foreign baddies specializing in the sex slave trade, Mills gets to spring into action in what is the quintessential older man's fantasy...becoming the super-action hero with mad fighting skills and endless resources that can be brought to bear, in order to do whatever it takes to kill the bad guys and save the damsel-in-distress - said 'damsel' in this case being your teenage daughter.
Yes, there's plenty of accusations you can level at TAKEN: the further glorification of lawless violence (anyone who thinks that Neeson's Mills should be concerned about the rights of the criminals he obliterates is in for quite the profound shock); the more-than-obvious xenophobia (almost all the bad guys are Middle Eastern or something very close to it); the chauvinistic aspect of the story line (Mom's willfulness is what sets the whole mess in motion, when it turns out that "Father Knew Best" after all the entire time.)
But every action movie (Besson's especially) carries aspects of all these concerns. That having been said, if I'm going to see a film like TAKEN, I am not going to search for signs of political correctness. I want to see some greasy, sleazy, skeevy underworld types get their teeth and heads knocked in, and in that respect, this movie delivers, and just like actors half his age doing it, Neeson looks spectacular, as he moves and carries himself like the guy who can and will do whatever it takes to get the job done...especially when that job is saving and bringing home his loved ones.
Yes, I've heard all the complaints, but what I really want to know is when Liam's going to step into Bryan Mills' shoes again? With all due respect to Kiefer Sutherland, maybe Mills is what '24' needs on the day Jack Bauer is permanently retired from CTU...or what's left of it.