TAKEN
FILM REVIEW
Taken
Producer and writer: Luc Goddard
As film fans await the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, they have the opportunity to compare it with other spy thrillers. Taken is one such film starring our own Liam Neeson.
Neeson’s character, Bryan is far from glamorous. Divorced, he seems at first to be a pathetic figure; easily upstaged by his ex-wife’s horrendously rich new husband in the affections of his 17-year-old daughter Amy. He buys her a karaoke machine for her birthday. The stepfather buys her a horse. Although he moved to town to live near his daughter after retirement, it seems that Bryan is going to struggle to build any kind of relationship with the lively teenager.
As we see him drown his sorrows with his old workmates at a barbecue at his home, we see that there is more to Bryan than first appears. His old buddies seem to have been members of some kind of covert intelligence agency. They now invite him to provide security to a young pop singer at a gig in town the next night. Bryan agrees to do the job. After the gig he manages to disarm a knife-wielding attacker and whisks her off to safety This is a man who can handle himself. You don’t want to mess with him if you know what’s good for you.
As Amy is still a minor, she needs Bryan to sign a document to allow her to spend a holiday in France with her older schoolfriend, Amanda. He’s not too happy about the idea but relents provided that she agrees to a number of conditions and always keeps in touch using a mobile phone he gives her.
I can’t imagine that the French tourist board will appreciate this film. Bryan worries about his daughter come terribly true. The two American girls are marked out by Peter, a spotter for a ruthless gang of kidnappers, who shares a taxi from the airport with them in order to discover where they are staying. I can see thousands of American and other filmgoers mentally crossing off Paris as a possible holiday destination after watching this film.
Amy is on the phone with her dad as the gang breaks in and kidnaps the two girls. He records the background sounds as Amy hides under a bed and describes as much details as possible about the kidnappers before she is taken. In a brief phone exchange with one kidnapper he demands that his daughter be released unharmed or he would come over to Paris, use his ‘special skills’ and track them down and kill them. Contemptuously one kidnapper answered ‘Good luck’ before smashing the phone and making off with the two girls. He really should have listened and saved himself a lot of grief.
Bryan learns that he has only 96 hours to act before the girls are turned into junkies and sold into sex-slavery by an Albanian gang. He calls in favours and sets off in pursuit.
This is where the film starts to lose its moral compass. Taken was thrilling and compelling as Bryan learned of Amy’s kidnapping and set out to track down his daughter and the gang who stole her away. It looked fantastic too. However, its message on the use of torture, murder and violence – even on innocents who get in the way – is very disturbing.
Bryan cuts a swathe of mayhem across Paris as he chases after the kidnappers of his daughter. In his ruthless determination to catch up with them he does not hesitate to use torture and murder. Few people would show much sympathy for a gang of Albanian people-traffickers or perverted sheikhs. In our angrier moments we might think that they probably deserve all the get from the likes of Bryan. Fair enough, but he even puts a bullet into a totally innocent woman – the wife of a top French former colleague – to pressurise him into giving up information on a suspect. This scene was brutal and shocking. I think it crossed a line in its display of gratuitous violence purely for entertainment. Bryan may well love and care for his daughter but a man who is this dangerous needs locking up.
Taken
Producer and writer: Luc Goddard
As film fans await the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, they have the opportunity to compare it with other spy thrillers. Taken is one such film starring our own Liam Neeson.
Neeson’s character, Bryan is far from glamorous. Divorced, he seems at first to be a pathetic figure; easily upstaged by his ex-wife’s horrendously rich new husband in the affections of his 17-year-old daughter Amy. He buys her a karaoke machine for her birthday. The stepfather buys her a horse. Although he moved to town to live near his daughter after retirement, it seems that Bryan is going to struggle to build any kind of relationship with the lively teenager.
As we see him drown his sorrows with his old workmates at a barbecue at his home, we see that there is more to Bryan than first appears. His old buddies seem to have been members of some kind of covert intelligence agency. They now invite him to provide security to a young pop singer at a gig in town the next night. Bryan agrees to do the job. After the gig he manages to disarm a knife-wielding attacker and whisks her off to safety This is a man who can handle himself. You don’t want to mess with him if you know what’s good for you.
As Amy is still a minor, she needs Bryan to sign a document to allow her to spend a holiday in France with her older schoolfriend, Amanda. He’s not too happy about the idea but relents provided that she agrees to a number of conditions and always keeps in touch using a mobile phone he gives her.
I can’t imagine that the French tourist board will appreciate this film. Bryan worries about his daughter come terribly true. The two American girls are marked out by Peter, a spotter for a ruthless gang of kidnappers, who shares a taxi from the airport with them in order to discover where they are staying. I can see thousands of American and other filmgoers mentally crossing off Paris as a possible holiday destination after watching this film.
Amy is on the phone with her dad as the gang breaks in and kidnaps the two girls. He records the background sounds as Amy hides under a bed and describes as much details as possible about the kidnappers before she is taken. In a brief phone exchange with one kidnapper he demands that his daughter be released unharmed or he would come over to Paris, use his ‘special skills’ and track them down and kill them. Contemptuously one kidnapper answered ‘Good luck’ before smashing the phone and making off with the two girls. He really should have listened and saved himself a lot of grief.
Bryan learns that he has only 96 hours to act before the girls are turned into junkies and sold into sex-slavery by an Albanian gang. He calls in favours and sets off in pursuit.
This is where the film starts to lose its moral compass. Taken was thrilling and compelling as Bryan learned of Amy’s kidnapping and set out to track down his daughter and the gang who stole her away. It looked fantastic too. However, its message on the use of torture, murder and violence – even on innocents who get in the way – is very disturbing.
Bryan cuts a swathe of mayhem across Paris as he chases after the kidnappers of his daughter. In his ruthless determination to catch up with them he does not hesitate to use torture and murder. Few people would show much sympathy for a gang of Albanian people-traffickers or perverted sheikhs. In our angrier moments we might think that they probably deserve all the get from the likes of Bryan. Fair enough, but he even puts a bullet into a totally innocent woman – the wife of a top French former colleague – to pressurise him into giving up information on a suspect. This scene was brutal and shocking. I think it crossed a line in its display of gratuitous violence purely for entertainment. Bryan may well love and care for his daughter but a man who is this dangerous needs locking up.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: TAKEN.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.thecarrick.biz/kerrscorner/mt-tb.cgi/127
Leave a comment