Film Reviews

Taken

• Howick and Pakuranga Times

TAKEN. Rated: R16: Contains violence drug use and sexual references.  
Running Time: 95 mins.
Times rating:

Liam Neeson brings his considerable screen presence to this role about a  divorced former CIA agent Bryan, who consents to allow his 17 year old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) to travel from Los Angeles to Europe with her girlfriend Amanda (Katie Cassidy); he does so reluctantly after his ex wife Lenore (Famke Jenssen) pressures him.

His worst fears are soon realised when the two young women are taken by an underworld gang which uses travelling females to feed an extensive sex slave trafficking trade. Bryan, who has retired to be closer to Kim and spend more time with her, is catapulted back into his old profession, and has to use every trick in and out of the book to try and track down the gang and save his daughter before she disappears forever in the belly of the trafficking beast.

Neeson is at least as likeable and credible as Harrison Ford might have been in this role some years ago. It’s the kind of role, where the hero has a powerful personal agenda motivating the big game action.

The film has a simple but effective premise: the ex-CIA agent on a mission to save his kidnapped daughter. But the variables give the film a lot to work with, from the Paris setting to the deadly gang who steal and trade women like slaves. There are a couple of gaps in the story, but we can overlook these as we speed through a film that sets a breakneck pace, not to mention precise violence and tension in spades.

While Neeson inhabits his character and occupies most of the screen time, the faceless henchmen of the piece don’t come much nastier, so we are told, than the Albanian thugs in this plot. Even the Russian mafia give them a wide berth, Bryan is warned.

The stakes are very high, and credible, so the hunt takes on a visceral intensity as Bryan races against the clock. In cases like this, says an old French contact now working behind a desk (Olivier Rabourdin in excellent form), if the victim is not found and rescued within 76 hours, chances are they never will be.

Pierre Morel’s direction lives up to the script’s demands for a high octane action thriller with some of the most effective fight sequences of recent times, and some stunning stunts.

He also makes Bryan’s bruising encounters with the bad guys exciting for their choreography and camera coverage. There is also a touch of realism in Bryan getting injured; it helps maintain authenticity.

But the film’s big strength remains its believability and this I feel is down to one thing - its well chosen cast and the grounding and realism they bring. They make us believe that maybe, just maybe, this type of thing could actually happen.

– Scotty Moorhead