by James Gapinski

Created on: March 31, 2009

Repeatedly compared to the popular Bourne franchise, Taken transplants a skilled special agent into a personal fight, pulling out all the stops to succeed. Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, former spy trying to mend relationships with his estranged ex-wife and distant daughter. The movie opens a bit slow, with some moderately campy bonding scenes to establish Byran's desire to be a good father despite his protective, overbearing nature. These character-building scenes are a bit too obvious, lending little to the story beyond fluff to make the audience half-heartedly believe in Bryan. In what is billed as an action movie, it would have been more prudent to open with action, followed by heartfelt character establishment. Or, perhaps a series of flashbacks parsed over the course of the film. The introduction simply does not capture the viewer.

Overall, the actors and actresses adapt well to the poorly scripted opening. The initial scenes showcase good portrayals by everybody the main protagonist the smaller partsthe exception came from Maggie Grace, playing Bryan's daughter, Kim. The audience is often aware that she is acting, due in part to her over-exaggerated expressions and poorly emoted dialoging.

The plot progresses as Kim takes a trip to Europe and is subsequently abducted. Bryan goes to France to track down the abductors; it is abundantly clear that Bryan plans to not just bring daughter home, but also enact revenge on her captors.

A plot point not resoundingly clear in theatrical trailers is the nature of Kim's captors. The viewer does not enter the theater knowing why Kim was kidnapped. Without spoiling the film, the people who abducted Kim are part of a larger web of crimes, and Bryan's search for his daughter takes him to many strange and disturbing places.

Liam Neeson embodies the role well, taking the played-out spy persona to a new level. It's not the overdone "family man" side of his character that scores high marks, it is the unreserved way he tracks down his daughter's captors. Whereas other spies use a combination of direct action and sleuthing to achieve their goals, Neeson's Bryan only uses direct action. The film does establish Bryan as intelligent, yet he mostly uses skills of brute force and intimidation to work quicklyhe does not have time to bug phones or follow suspects, since it is quickly discovered that he has a limited timeframe to work with if he hopes to see his daughter again. Neeson aggressively tracks down leads and either kills them or makes them talk through what can only be described as torture. Yet the average movie-goer still identifies with Bryan, seeing most of his actions as relatively justified. This excellent scripting, coupled with Neeson's powerful acting, overshadows the mundane opening and equally clich ending, earning this film a decent 7 out of 10.

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