Taken

I'm a little behind on this one so you'll have to forgive me. My wife and I worked out a new plan for the weekend where I can now see a movie every week! I have a backlog of movies that I need to review and to see and this was one of them that was at the top of my list for a month or so now. But I'm only seeing it now because the wife was not interested in seeing a movie about kidnapped children. I tried to explain to her that she wasn't really a child it's Maggie Grace and she's supposed to be 17. But no, my wife would have none of that. I can sympathize since having a child it does make you more sensitive to this kind of thing but at the same time I can separate the reality from the suspense. Unfortunately my wife cannot. So even when I explained to her that Liam Neeson's bad ass CIA agent would paint his masterpiece with the kidnappers blood in order to get his daughter back in one piece---nuh-uh, still not gonna see it. Even on my birthday! Nope....Needless to say this went on for a few weeks and I finally just gave up. Luckily for me I checked the AMC listings this past Saturday and saw that it was still playing. I took advantage of my good fortune and went to see it. I will say this one thing before I begin it is a damn good thing that Liam Neeson was in this movie otherwise--it might have been straight to the bargain bin at Best Buy with this flick.The film starts simply enough, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), a sad sack loner who has missed out on the golden years of his daughter's (Maggie Grace) childhood pines for her attention against the Ponies and lavish lifestyle from her pimp, er I mean Step-Daddy (Xander Berkeley). The poor guy gets shit on by his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) and it seems like he's having trouble holding onto a job. The daughter, Kim, begs to go to Paris basically by herself. Bryan begrudingly agrees, but he does give her plenty of warning about the danger. Foreshadowing much? Of course there is something more to this guy. He worked for the "government." The dialogue in the beginning is cringe-worthy and poorly written. It's when Bryan takes down his first attacker, while on assignment, does the movie start to show some promise.So Bryan gets the phone call from his daughter as men are in the house taking her friend and now coming after her. I really thought this part was interesting--he tells his daughter that she is going to be taken but she needed to shout out clues for him to follow. Now this thing is really starting to take off. Bryan shows off his expertice as he flies to France and proceeds to kick the shit out anyone that gets in the way of him finding his daughter. It has the frenetic pace of a Jason Bourne flick with a dash of Man on Fire. Neeson isn't quite as scary as Denzel Washington's Creasy (Man on Fire) but he is just as effective and equally prone to torture his way to answers.Honestly Liam needs to do more action flicks. He brings humanity and pathos to his roles but he can also kick your ass in many different ways. He isn't getting any younger so I think it's time for an onslaught of taut suspenseful action flicks starring the only man who could make Christian Bale's Batman his bitch, Liam "Fucking" Neeson. So if you are like me and waited an eternity to see this flick--don't wait any longer. Once you get past the first ten minutes or so you'll be glad you stayed.

Grade 3 Buckets