It Was All Personal

Meaghan and I were back in the Roch for an extended weekend and decided to cash in some free movie passes at one of our old haunts, the Chateau Theatres. Being smack in the middle of the annual winter dead zone of bad movies, we opted for a good old-fashioned action flick, Taken. If it doesn't involve a DC superhero of some kind, we typically don't see this sort of thing on the big screen. It was getting an 8.0 on IMDB and hey, it was free so it seemed worth the risk.

Before I get into the movie itself, it just wouldn't be a post here at the Amber Tower without me rambling on for a bit about something first. If I had done some research first, I would have realized that we had nothing to worry about because Taken has a good pedigree. Co-written by Luc Besson (Leon: The Professional - which if you haven't seen is a must. Natalie Portman in her first feature film; she's always better in edgy roles [see Closer, Garden State]) and Robert Mark Kamen (they co-wrote The Fifth Element which features this sublimely silly action sequence among others), it was bound to be entertaining. Throw in Liam Neeson, who is almost always good, and you're guaranteed a success.

On its face, Taken is a run-of-the-mill action flick. Neeson is a former government agent whose teenage daughter is kidnapped while on vacation in Paris. His mission, should he choose to accept it, is to go to France and get her back. There's a little bit of a "ripped from the headlines" feel to the story as it turns out that the culprits have nabbed her for the sex slave trade. Unfortunately, if this movie was made to raise awareness of the issue I'm afraid it gets a bit lost amongst all the action.

It rises a bit above the run-of-the-mill in its staging of the action sequences. In your typical film, our invincible hero blasts his way through the movie on little more than his sheer badassery. In Taken, the filmmakers have taken care to show how and why Neeson is such a badass. When infiltrating the bad guys' HQ you can see him taking note of how many men are lurking about and how they're armed. When he goes to jump on to a moving boat, he literally pauses for a few seconds to look before he leaps. Our man of action is cautious and studied, but incredibly lethal.

The fight scenes are quick and to the point. No need to waste time with endless choreography (like any Hong Kong action flick) or thousands of bullets (Rambo), our man can disable a room full of baddies in under 30 seconds. He even has time to deliver some clever (but not snarky) one-liners in the process. I don't think it would be spoiling anything to tell you that our antihero saves his daughter and leaves a trail of bodies in his wake.

In the end, it's enough to make you wonder what the world would be like if everybody in law enforcement took such a personal interest in all of the victims of crime. Would the world be a safer place? Would human rights be violated in the process, or does making an omelette require the breaking of a few eggs? Taken offers no answers, but it is good fun.