Film

Taken Review

With the release of Taken 2 imminent I thought I’d take a look back at the original film from 2008.

And the award for best phone monolgue in a movie goes to…. Taken. But you already know that because you’ve seen either the trailer or the countless Internet Memes. So now the good parts out the way lets have a look at the rest of the film.

Taken is your typical old spy out of retirement story, all the essential parts are there, a life that’s fell apart, the obligatory ex wife and the daughter of which he is over protective. It’s this daughter, who her in virginal state visits Paris with friends and is kidnapped by Albanian sex traders.

So Liam Neeson becomes super dad, finds out he’s got 96 hours to find his daughter (since when did Albanian sex traders give such generous time limits?) and heads through the film becoming a one man killing machine and destroying half of Europe on his way through.

The film’s plot is a mess, coincidences pile up quicker than the body count and if  it wasn’t for Neeson to save the film with a decent performance this would have been a complete disaster. Though seeing Neeson killing bad guys quickly loses its novelty and I found myself just waiting for the end credits to roll.

So I’d  like to congratulate Liam Neeson, who has managed to sell one of his worst movies to the masses thanks to his name and a steely phone speech. This film is effectively torture porn at its best. Even as a revenge movie it still didn’t quite work for me. If we learnt anything from this film its not to let your daughter go to Paris on her own. She might get kidnapped, or even worse, end up in an awful movie like this.  Rating: * and a half.

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