Review:
*Originally written May 5th, 2015*
Taken is a straight-forward action film from 2008 and Liam Neeson's first fully fledged foray into action films after brief appearances in films like Batman Begins and The Phantom Menace.
Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, an ex CIA whose daughter is kidnapped in France while following around U2 on a European tour. That's basically the story, and while it takes a good half an hour of the film to get here, after that it is all non-stop chaos and balls out the bath action.
Liam Neeson really proves here that he is capable of carrying action films, which obviously paid off as he's doing about an average of 2-3 action films a year at the moment, even if the results are hit and miss. He commands the screen with his presence and handles action scenes extremely well. His character here is completely no-nonsense and executes bad-guys mid sentence.
The violence here is brutal and gritty and goes to places like the sex-slave trade, which is a pretty dark subject for action films these days and it's a shame that the sequels completely neuter the violence and tone for a more silly and toned down family friendly appeal.
One of the best things about Taken aside from it's brutal violence and Liam Neeson, is the fact it's length is barely 90 minutes. Which gives way to a very breezy watch, even if the first 30 minutes are a bit of a drag to get through and makes a change from action films these days that have a habit of being about 140 minutes plus.
A minor criticism of Taken is the lack of a compelling villain. The bad-guys on display are all faceless Albanians who are nothing but bullet bait for Liam Neeson. Although, I'm not sure if they a big overlooking villain would have worked for the narrative, as the big bad guy at the end does not even get introduced till the final action scene 80-minutes in.
7/10 Dans
Taken is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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