Kindly Remove Your Brain and Simplify Your Morality

Taken Review

This movie is mostly what you’d expect, standing out largely in ways that value brute violence over logic and moral/political responsibility.

Liam Neeson plays an ex-spy in retirement whose daughter just happens to be kidnapped by Albanian sex traffickers who sell kidnapped tourists to vaguely Arab men. This should play very well in Luc Besson’s native France, with its large population of Arabs. My point is a movie like this, wherein Neeson has a xenophobic monologue to the effect of (my paraphrasing) ‘you people come here and take advantage of the country’s hospitality’ is not going to help heal the xenophobic tensions across the world or in Paris.

The film is written by Besson and sometimes collaborator Robert Mark Kamen (the duo behind dumb actioners
Transporter 1, 2, and 3) and it shares those films casual disregard for logic (Neeson chases a guy across a highway and is not arrested or even pursued by police).

If Taken stands out at all, it’s for its utilization of the increasingly popular over-revenge angle. In over-revenge films, the protagonist is given a free pass to commit any kind of atrocity so long as it is in the name of his love. In Sin City this was the logic that argued you should be rooting for Bruce Willis to castrate a man, twice, and for Mickey Rourke to watch dogs eat Elijah Wood’s character alive.

Taken doesn’t go quite that far. If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t read this

SPOILER

But Taken‘s real out-there moment is when Neeson casually shoots a political official’s 100% innocent wife at dinner. He defends himself by saying, “It’s a flesh wound.” Again, you are supposed to be fine with this. This is the age we are living in, when the ends justify the means. Movies do not exist in a vacuum, all this stuff is connected. It’s thought processes like these that create institutions like Guantanamo.

END SPOILER

Director Pierre Morel also was behind the infinitely superior District B-13, a film with stronger action sequences (utilizing the increasingly popular parkour) and a political message that didn’t suggest immigrants are bad people.

Likewise Luc Besson has also done better, he wrote The Professional and Unleashed, two out-there action films that did something unique with the genre and even provoked some actual thoughts.

I personally know at least 30 writers capable of writing this exact same script, if they were given the assignment. It’s formulaic in a way that’s probably going to be comforting to some and frustrating to others. It’s frustrating to me.

The Positives

Liam Neeson does kick some serious ass in this movie. The first time he karate chops a man in the throat and slams his head against a car, I was sold. He’s about as good as you could ask, given the material he’s working with.

How Old is Maggie Grace?

25. She plays a 17 year old in this movie as if that meant she had to play it like a 12 year old. She giggles and bops around in the early going, and is even given a pony (!) as a birthday present. Seriously, a pony.

What Americans and Anyone Else Should Watch Prior to Watching This Movie

A Turkish film called Valley of the Wolves: Iraq. For once the Americans are the bad guys and the dark skinned men are the good guys. Everyone should see this movie so they can appreciate what it’s like to be on the opposite side of that equation. Once upon a time James Bond always fought Russians. It seems the world has replaced Russians with Arabs as the new screen villains. “They hate us for our freedom.” I don’t think so.

-Dan Benamor