By Bob Zerull
2 1/2 Stars:
When you think of bad asses, I'm pretty sure that Liam Neeson is not the first person that pops into mind. Maybe Daniel Craig as James Bond, Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey from "Death Wish" or even Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, but Liam Neeson playing a combination of these three? For real? This is a movie I definitely would normally skip over, but Luc Besson ("Leon," "The Fifth Element") was one of the writers and "Leon: The Professional" is a great action flick, so I decided to check it out.
One thing I hate in movies is when characters are talking about a potential random conflict for no real reason, only to have that conflict happen. I go back to the Academy Award winning movie "Crash." I hate that movie with a passion. There is this scene where Ludacris is walking down the street with his friend discussing racism. On the other side of the street Sandra Bullock and Brendan Frasier are walking down the street discussing racism and how they're afraid these black guys are going to jump them. Sure enough the black guys jump them. The same kind of thing happens in "Taken."
Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills a retired spy with Jason Bourne type skills. He's dedicated most of his life to his career and has lost a lot of time with his ex wife and daughter. Now that he is retired he is looking to make up some lost ground with his daughter, only to find out that she wants to follow U2 on tour in Europe. Famke Janssen plays Mills' ex wife and she approves of this trip, but their daughter must convince Mills to get on board.
First of all, I don't buy that many parents would allow their high school kid go on their own without parental supervision overseas to follow a rock band. I'll play along though. Mills does not approve of this little vacation citing reasons that ultimately end up happening. If you can get past all of that then this is one entertaining action movie.
Practically the moment Mills' daughter lands in France she's kidnapped, but she happens to be on the phone with Mills during the kidnapping which turns out to be the best scene in the movie. The scene is played in the trailer and the quote is written on the movie poster, "I don't know who you are, but if you don't let my daughter go I will find you, I will kill you." Going in I was a bit skeptical of Neeson pulling off the role of bad ass, but I will admit I bought it. Liam Neeson is a tremendous actor and he has just added a bad ass character from an OK movie to his resume.
BYLINE:
Bob Zerull is a frequent movie and concert goer who talks about his ventures to arenas and theaters more than any person should be allowed to do. Now, he puts them down on paper. Email him your thoughts at: bzerull19@gmail.com.
Friday, February 13, 2009
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