Monday, December 28, 2009

Taken

Movie Review : Taken
Released : 2009
Director : Pierre Morel
Genre : Thriller
Starring : Liam Neeson
My Rating : 7 out of 10

Taken has at its heart, a nightmare scenario for every parent. A son/daughter being kidnapped. To make matters worse, the teenage daughter is kidnapped in a foreign country by a large criminal network, who is not interested in ransom, but selling off the girl for prostitution and then eventual murder.

This time, the parent happens to be an ex-spy who still possesses superhuman skills and great contacts. This aged superhero is racing against time to save his daughter and has to succeed in an amazingly diverse challenges thrown at him by the situation.

These are the kind of movies that require a firm commitment to not raise any logical objection whasoever. If you start thinking then you can find more holes in the plot than there are craters on the Moon. So the director has to make sure that the viewer does not get any time to think. And in this movie, the director succeeds.

He does that, by keeping the movie short, by not wasting any time in any unrelated fluff, by keeping it moving at a very rapid pace and by letting a very good actor take on 90% of the screen time. Casting was extremely important here. Liam Neeson is neither Daniel Craig (James Bond) nor Matt Damon (Jason Bourne). But he is perfect for this role who has to play both a doting father and a skilled mercenary. Everyone else, including the villains and the kidnapped daughter, gets only a few minutes, and manage to not ruin the fun.

I recommend this movie if you are willing to just enjoy a fast and furious 90 minutes of action.

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