Taken

Taken is one those films that the average viewer will either consider to be a guilty pleasure, or a total waste of time and money. I'm of the former opinion, and in spite of some ridiculous dialogue and plot contrivances it did make for a decent "popcorn" movie. Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, who retired from the CIA in order to spend more time with his teenage daughter whom he didn't get to see much during his spy days, since he was obviously too busy saving the world. His daughter and friend are quickly kidnapped by White Slavers after arriving in Paris, a trip that dad was not too happy about in the first place. Faster than you can say Jack Bauer, dad collects his bag of tricks and goes into action to find his daughter, and of course kill the people responsible. This film is loaded with a lot of action, including shooting, fisticuffs, and yes torture, so the last hour of the film actually does resemble a season of 24, without you having to fast forward through all the commercials. If you like this sort of thing you should be able to overlook most of the unbelievable stuff, although one scene where he shoots a former friend's wife in the arm to make a point, and then proclaims that "it's only a flesh wound" almost made me chuckle. One note, I'm not sure if Mr. Neeson wears a toupee in the film or simply just used too much hair dye, but the color was just unnatural, overly youthful and distracting. When I'm watching someone kick a bad guy across a room I don't want to be thinking, "hey, whoa on the Grecian Formula".

Rating - Light 3