Before we begin, I am aware I have acquired something of a reputation recently for reviewing the rather less palatable members of the cinematic world. While the film I am about to review may well dwell within the realms of 'bad movies', it is a film I nonetheless feel a certain kind of fondness for; a blokey, amiable affection that allows me to enjoy it much like I would enjoy a destruction derby or act of violence on the football pitch. It's not clever, nor necessarily right to enjoy on an intellectual level, but it is loud, fun and makes the average male viewer wonder why he's wasting his life pushing buttons instead of beating the shit out of other males in interesting and satisfying ways.
Taken, then, might be called a guilty pleasure, and not without reason. Starring Liam Neeson in a rather unlikely role that he nonetheless plays very well, it is a straightforward badass-father-gets-revenge tale. When ex-CIA operative Bryan Mills' (pleasingly normal name for a protagonist) daughter gets kidnapped in Paris, it is up to him to cross the Atlantic and find her, all the while using a mix of violence, cunning and dubiously efficient technology to track her down.
The film begins well enough, giving Bryan and his daughter a fairly substantial back-story without getting too dull; part of the film's charm is that, considering the carnage that follows, a very real relationship is created between Bryan and his soon-to-be-nabbed child, making his plain mental rescue plan all the more believable. He's a sympathetic character you root for, a clearly loving man, yet nonetheless a complete badass, established in an early scene when he protects a singer from a crazed fan with what can only be termed extreme prejudice. Neeson is perfect for this role, his kind-hearted face tempered with a well-practiced steely gaze, not far from a slightly less irritatingly severe Jack Bauer. Sure, the actress playing her daughter doesn't quite seem to have the hang of basic human locomotion (watch her run. It's hilarious) and the rest of the cast are nothing special, but it doesn't matter, this is Neeson's movie; did you dislike Goldeneye because Sean Bean was less than convincing in it? Of course not, it was all about Brosnan anyway.
Anyway. Soon enough, Bryan's daughter is kidnapped, the action begins, and you'd better be ready for it, because that's all you'll be seeing for the next hour or so. I have seen a lot of action movies in my time, but none so relentlessly full of genuinely brilliant moments of violence, the kind that makes you laugh and cheer at the sheer badassery involved. Forget pin point accurate gun work or gymnastic scissor kicks, Bryan wins fights through sheer refined brutality. If there's a car door nearby, you can wager a head will be slammed by it. Fire extinguisher? Say goodbye to the bad guy's face. Seriously, the film is a masterpiece in the aestheticisation of violence, and as with all films of this ilk, it is not restricted to close combat, with car chases, gun fights and torture all crucial pieces of the savage jigsaw.
However, Taken differs somewhat from the typical action flick in certain ways. Firstly, although the protagonist has the usual casus belli in his favour somewhat justifying his relentless, bloody pursuit, what is not justified are certain acts of outright cruel revenge exacted upon his enemies. Although Rambo and Arnie always execute in cold blood the REALLY annoying bad guy, Bryan's actions can get uncomfortably homicidal at times. In one particularly hair-raising scene, he SHOOTS A GUY'S WIFE (who is completely oblivious to the developments of the story) without a trace of remorse (bar an actually quite funnily gruff 'please apologise to your wife for me') in order to get said guy to comply with his demands. In another scene, which is quite frankly astonishingly cruel... well, I'll not spoilt it, but let's just say he doesn't display the kind of moral decency your normal hero would. Whilst I would not go so far to say as this is an intelligent social commentary on the righteousness of revenge when family are involved and whether or not it is right to perpetrate certain acts for your own needs, more likely I would say the film is boldly stating the obvious: this guy has lost his daughter, and if you ended up in a similar situation, you'd do the same. Refreshing, perhaps, that a protagonist is portrayed so realistically; men can be furious, and men with a kidnapped daughter and some badass skills are especially dangerous when furious.
Beyond the asskicking, there is your usual tripe about that special bloke all heroes have who can tell them everything about anything whenever they want, sheer inefficiency of supposedly hardened criminal types when it comes to eliminating Bryan, basically all your usual James Bond tropes, but it all goes towards keeping the film ticking over in a suitably fast-paced fashion. Although many films employ the trick of ACTION ACTION ACTION to mask deficiencies in the plot or script, that doesn't really apply here as there is not much plot to deficiencise or script to rubbish; if anything, the script is quite well done in a limited kind of way, with Neeson happily avoiding delivering his lines with the cheesy sneer of a Bond, and any dialogue is much like the fighting: short, brusque, yet pleasingly efficient in achieving it's aims.
As you might have been able to tell, I loved this film. I make no apologies for the fact that violence, when done right, is one of the most entertaining things around. The story is really just an excuse for a succession of well-staged fights (and some quiet moments of badass espionage) and it's a firm favourite among my (unapologetically male) flatmates as well. It really owes more to a Jackie Chan film at their simplest (think Rumble In the Bronx); fighting man fights for personal reasons, with little in the film devoted to the tiresome Machiavellian exploits of a Bond villain, for example. In this sense, it is extremely non-boring, if not entirely satisfying on an intellectual level.
Admittedly, many of you will watch this film and hate it. At it's worst, it is dumb, brutal and unrealistic. However, if you appreciate a well-made action film with a likeable yet realistic protagonist and a good fight scene, you could do a lot worse.
7 thumbs up.
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Topic: wombat tries to watch movies again (Read 100016 times)