Movie Review: Taken

Taken. This movie is split into one-third and two-thirds of a movie. The first third of the movie is a set up that gives you some background on Bryan Mills’ (Liam Neeson) life. You learn he’s a retired CIA agent. He’s now retired (partially driven by the fact that he put his personal life above his professional life and got rewarded with an out of the way assignment). He moved to Los Angeles to live closer to his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace – also had a role on Lost). He’s divorced and his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) has married a wealthy individual. This wealthy individual doesn’t come off as that bad of a guy, though the ex-wife has a mean streak to her. (The question of course is: how does an ex-wife of a CIA agent find such a wealthy catch?) Mills still hangs out with his CIA buddies who offer him a private security job which entails guarding a young female singer. It is at the concert where a crazed fan attempts to slash/kill/threaten the young singer that you witness the skills Mills learned in the CIA. The last two-thirds of the movie deals with the Paris, France (his daughter having gone off to Europe for a summer road trip) abduction of his daughter by an Albanian sex slave gang and how Mills goes about rescuing his daughter.

This is one of those action movies that at times make you pause and think that this movie just isn’t making much sense. First example of a pause and think, Bryan Mills goes to the apartment where his daughter was kidnapped. For some reason, instead of breaking into the apartment directly, he breaks into another apartment and then enters the apartment where his daughter was staying by climbing out onto the window edge and carefully making his way from apartment to apartment – five stories up. This would make sense if the police had sealed off the apartment, but it doesn’t seem like that was the case. There is no evidence in the apartment that the police were even informed of the kidnapping -- there was a broken cell phone on the floor, which I’d think the police would have taken if they’d searched the apartment. I suppose there are reasons why he'd do this -- fear of an alarm going off, fear of having someone see a busted door (though he's ex-CIA and knows how to pick a lock) -- but I wouldn't buy any of the arguments. Second example of a pause and think, Mills chases down a lead at the airport. He steals a taxi cab and the airport police are seen running after him. The bad guy is running up a ramp. Mills drives off after him. He probably drives 200 yards – at most. He then jumps out of the car to chase down the guy. The guy gets killed by a truck. Where have the police gone? Is 200 yards too far for them to run? Third example, there are numerous gun battles where he is a single guy against many. The many have machine guns. He has a hand gun. Do people with machine guns not know how to use them? There is a scene where a gunman is shooting up in the air while Mills is hiding behind a couch. And how is it that someone with a machine gun can’t at least wound Mills while Mills somehow has such perfect aim that while hiding behind a couch he is able to take a single shot and shoot a guy in the foot?

There are a lot of gaps in this movie, but I admit I enjoyed it though I half suspect if I see this movie five years from now I’ll be laughing at the action scenes. Admittedly, I think a more realistic take on this storyline would have had his friends head over to Europe with him. You could have a set of ex-CIA agents destroying the Albanian sex slavery ring. That would have made greater sense, I think – not that that would make much sense either, but at least it would seem more realistic for four ex-CIA agents making a rescue attempt versus just one. But if that was written into the script then I guess you wouldn’t have the American cultural characteristic of individuality at work, which is probably why this movie is doing so well at the box office. Hey, I admit it, I was sucked into the rescue-the-damsel-in-distress theme. This isn't the greatest action flick in the world (especially after comparing this movie to all the action/comic book movies from the summer), but for a winter action movie it works.