Darth Bruce sent in this interesting look at TAKEN, directed by Pierre Morel (cinematographer on WAR, UNLEASHED, and THE TRANSPORTER) , produced by Luc Besson, and scripted by Besson & Robert Mark Kamen (THE TRANSPORTER films & THE FIFTH ELEMENT).
The film hit overseas in February I believe, and should make it to The States in September. I've been looking FWD to seeing this, but suspect Darth Bruce's criticisms may be well-founded. We'll see...
Long time reader first time writer and all that jazz, just thought I’d drop
you an ultra quick review of a film that I’ve just had the pleasure to catch, TAKEN,
penned by Luc Besson and starring the always fine Neeson.
I’ve been excited about this one for a while now, since I first saw the trailer a few
months back, and maybe that’s got something to do with my reaction to the film, high
expectations and all that, anyway, I digress, to the review
BEWARE, SPOILERS FROM HERE ON IN
For those of you who haven’t read anything about the film, TAKEN centres on an ex CIA
‘preventer’ ( LIAM NEESON) who quits the company in order to become closer to his
estranged daughter (MAGGIE GRACE), who now lives with his bitter ex-wife (FAMKE
JANSEN) and her squeaky clean, mega rich second husband (XANDER BERKELEY).
Said daughter wants to go to France for the summer with her friend Amanda and follow
U2 around the continent from gig to gig. “All the kids are doing it” Jansen tells
Neeson (all the kids in Beverly hills, obviously). “I know the world” Neeson rumbles
gruffly “its dangerous.”
Begrudgingly he signs the consent form and allows her to jet off to France, handing
her a cell phone pre programmed with his number “Call me when you get there, and
every night before you go to sleep.”
So far so good. Rich characters, all well setup.
Grace lands in France with blonde disposable-sidekick Amanda, and before you can say
ooh la la, the two are being chatted up by a Parisian hunk, who offers to go dutch on
a taxi into town. “I’m gonna have sex with him” Amanda tells Grace back at their
apartment “come on, you gotta lose it sometime”.
Oh Amanda, haven’t you seen any films but at all? Its always the promiscuous one who
bites it first.
Minutes later a posse of black clad bad guys burst into the apartment and grab the
blonde bimbo. Grace, who is on the phone to Neeson at the time panics. And this is
where Neeson’s kick ass training kicks in (although by this time we’ve already seen
him disarm a knife wielding would be pop-princess-assassin) “get under the bed and
tell me exactly what you see”.
The scene is pretty well handled, building to the moment Grace is discovered and one
of the kidnappers comes on the line with Neeson
“If its money you’re after I can tell you I don’t have it, but what I do have is a
very particular set of skills… skills that make me a nightmare for people like you… I
will find you and I will kill you”
“Good luck” the faceless kidnapper snorts before hanging up.
Great first act, leaving us on a mystery: who are the kidnappers, what do they want
and what will happen to Grace?
And then it all starts to unravel. It almost feels like the writers had this
brilliant idea for an opening act but then struggled when it came to backing it up
with a compelling story. Sex trade slaves and a CIA hardman battling it out in Europe
should make for a fantastic film, but it just falls flat, for a variety of reasons.
The most obvious to me was the lack of a main bad guy, a single nemesis who comes
into conflict with Neeson through the whole story. He’s just not in it. Oh, sure,
there are LOADS of bad guys who Neeson chop sockeys his way through in the film,
pimps, gangsters, secret service men, body guards, some weird Arabic rich guys with
curvy knives…. but they all come and go in different parts, appearing briefly into
the story before Neeson dispatches them, and it all just ends up feeling like an
excuse to see the CIA guy get his kung fu on, which is all well and fine but it just
never delivers on the promise of that first plot point.
There’s also a drugged up prostitute who Neeson rescues who I thought was going to be
a ‘character’ in it, but who is actually just there to be quickly rescued and then
disappears completely and without any explanation. One second he’s weening her off
smack in a hotel bedroom, the next she’s…. well…. I don’t know where.
I mean it could honestly have been made with Van Damme in the starring role, not that
Neeson is bad, he’s Qui Gon Jinn for gods sake, but the script never demands too much
of him, and after a while his move’s and the action become repetitive.
The other let down is the direction. The film feels just kinda cheap in places. It
was obviously shot on a modest budget and they don’t do it badly, it just lacks the
wow factor. The style is too Bourne lite, lots of handheld stuff but its very
unobtrusive to the point of it being unremarkable.
Anyway, the plot meanders as Neeson tracks his daughter and the sec traffickers
across Paris, to a posh mansion where a virgin auction is being held. By this point
I’d stopped believing, and to be frank, caring. It just didn’t sit right that the sex
traffikers would kidnap a couple of rich Beverly hills kids, it all seemed like a bit
too much trouble. “Its cheaper than paying the transportation costs [for eastern
European prostitutes]” his CIA buddy tells him when gathering intelligence.
Oh yes, the CIA buddy. When Neeson plays him a recording of the kidnapper saying good
luck, his former workmate tells him it sounds Albanian, probably from the town
treblinca from the accent.
What?
The guy said “good luck”. In English.
And you got all that from two words. Damn. How could he get all of that from two
words but seven years on they’re still trying to track down Bin Laden.
You don’t have to suspend your disbelief so much as sedate it.
Its not a bad little film, in fact it’s a pretty good B-movie, which is the problem I
guess; you can’t have a B-Movie starring Liam Neeson, he’s just too damn good for
it.
Do yourself a favour and wait for this one to come out on video.
If you use this please call me Darth Bruce
