Just saw an early screening of the thriller Taken, which opens wide this Friday. In it, Liam Neeson plays Byran Miller, a former spy of sorts who calls himself a “preventor.” While he’s retired from his days of staging US-backed coups in the Middle East because he wants to re-connect with his 17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), he’s still got the skills to take down a veritable army of Armenian bad guys who abduct his daughter while she’s vacationing in Paris. An Irish-born actor whose career goes back to the late ’70s, Neeson is a bit out of his element here. He’s not quite steely enough to play the kill-at-will Bryan Miller and lacks the sex appeal of a Daniel Craig or Matt Damon. Still, the story, co-written by action/thriller producer and director Luc Besson, wasn’t scripted for a young gun but instead for a guy who’s tried to give up the espionage game and quietly settle into middle-age. And to that extent, Neeson fits the role. It helps, too, that the 90-minute flick is never dull. Some of the chase scenes – particularly one in which he hijacks a 4×4 and has to elude an endless stream of bad guys – are pretty riveting.  And given the way Bryan Miller shows no regard for international law (and knows a thing or two about torture), the film offers a subtle critique of American anti-terror tactics, something which makes it a tad more interesting than your typical vigilante movie.

 

 

 

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Tags: Liam Neeson, Luc Besson, Taken, vigilante

This entry was posted by Jeff Niesel on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 6:26 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.