Review: Taken

When the lights dim on one of these action thrillers my question is always the same: Is this “300” or “The Kingdom?” Is this what it promises to be, a rousing, exciting, intelligent crowd pleaser true to its themes to the end like “300,” or is this “The Kingdom,” a hundred minutes of dishonest set up all designed to manipulate an emotional investment from you so that the closing, left wing, Big Hollywood sucker punch puts you on your knees?

I bring you glad tidings. Like a gritty, avenge grinder Charles Bronson might’ve made around, oh, 1973, “Taken” is about as satisfying an action thriller as you’re likely to see all year.

What a sad thing to have to say in January.

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) spent his adult life in the service of his country doing what he describes as “preventing bad things from happening.” This cost him his wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) and estranged him from his seventeen year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). To make up for lost time, Bryan’s retired and moved into a small, depressing L.A. apartment hoping to form some kind of relationship with Kim before she heads off to college.

The competition for his daughter’s affection is substantial, however. Mom remarried into L.A. money which comes with the mansion and a whole lot of “beautiful people.” When Bryan shows up for Kim’s birthday party with a karaoke machine likely purchased at the local Costco, Stepdad trots out a real, live horse. There’s a value gap, as well. Bryan understands how the real world works. Lenore and Kim, having benefitted from the security hard men like Bryan make possible, do not.

Bryan’s quickly discovering that the world he sacrificed so much for to keep safe holds no place for him. He’s a reminder of something people don’t want to be reminded of. Until the kidnapping, that is. Then Bryan’s worldview doesn’t seem so inconvenient and his unique skills so brutish.

If you’re thinking this sounds an awful lot like John Ford’s “The Searchers” (1956), you’re not alone. To its credit, “Taken” has no ambition beyond holding your attention for 90 exceptionally well paced minutes, but like John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards, only death will stop Bryan Mills. He’s a thing that will never stop coming “just as sure as the turning of the Earth.”

“Taken” is a simple story extremely well told with about six scenes so beautifully crafted you’ll want to turn right around and see it again. The kidnap scene alone is worth the price of admission but a torture sequence that would make Jack Bauer join the ACLU is a finger dead in the eye of moral illiterates who refuse to acknowledge the vast difference between those who target the innocent and those who kill those who target the innocent. No hand wringing here, no pause to contemplate man’s inhumanity to man – not when there’s evil to exterminate.

My only complaint, and it’s not a small one, is this new, grotesque style of presenting actions scenes filmed with an epileptic shaky-cam and edited in a blender set on “incomprehensible.” Luckily the story has enough drive to make up for these messy action sequences, but this trend can’t die soon enough.

Neeson’s terrific as the single-minded killing machine. One of the story’s best moment comes right after the kidnapping. Obviously Mills is heartsick over what happened, but the situation also allows him to reclaim his place in the world. Suddenly he has value and can take charge. Neeson’s rugged and believable in a role that demands nothing more, and he’s well-equipped to carry a boilerplate action film whose only surprises come from a lack of political correctness.

“Taken” isn’t out to reinvent the wheel. Years ago, Hollywood used to drop one of these in drive-ins and downtown theatres about once a month. But unlike last year’s “The Bank Job,” which strived for throwback only to get bogged down in a convoluted script, or Tarantino’s “Grindhouse” which made the mistake of thinking we were dying to relive the experience of seeing bad movies, “Taken” is what it is. Twenty-five years ago no one would’ve thought a thing of it, but today its lack of pretension and moral preening makes it downright original.

“Taken” just wants to give us a good time. What a concept.