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Review: Taken

The stink of producer/co-screenwriter Luc Besson permeates like Roquefort

By BRETT MICHEL | January 27, 2009

1.5 Stars

VIDEO: The trailer for Taken

Pierre Morel's talents as an action cinematographer served him well when he directed District B13 (2004). But here the stink of producer/co-screenwriter Luc Besson permeates his film like Roquefort.

Like the cheese, Morel's latest will have its admirers (those with a nose for fast-paced action), but it's another pungent release from Besson's EuropaCorp (responsible for the Transporter series) that biliously plays into America's perceived prejudice toward all things French, Arab, and . . . Albanian?

Liam Neeson (whose gravitas exists in a different orbit from the weightless script) is Bourne again as Bryan Mills, a retired (and oddly Irish-accented) American spook with no qualms about killing anyone who gets in the way of his finding his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), who's been kidnapped within minutes of setting foot in Paris. Goodbye City of Love; hello to, in Besson's purview, Sex-Trafficking Central.

Related: Review: From Paris With Love, Review: Chloe, Review: District 13: Ultimatum, More

Review: From Paris With Love
"God, I love the French," bellows the American ambassador to France.
Review: Chloe
One of the more ambitious genre filmmakers around, Atom Egoyan bravely takes on tawdry tales and tries to subvert them.
Review: District 13: Ultimatum
In 2004, Luc Besson's District B13 [ Banlieue 13 ] wall-jumped its way into our hearts by thrusting the urban acrobatics of parkour onto the big screen.
Review: Clash of the Titans
It takes a lot of movie magic to reduce some 3000 years of mythology to piffle. After watching this farrago produced by state-of-the-art 3-D and CGI, I’m all for the return of the oral tradition.
Review: Ponyo
In a film like Spirited Away (2001), Hayao Miyazaki takes flight and creates his own seductive animated universe. When tied to a Disney fable about the environment and true love, he lurches from cliché to myth to things that just leave you shaking your head.
Review: Five Minutes of Heaven
It's easy to see what attracted Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt ( Bloody Sunday ) to Prime Suspect veteran Guy Hibbert's screenplay: it's an actor's showcase.
Review: The A-Team
This fun big-screen reboot takes the quartet of fugitive vigilantes-for-hire into the digital era, and it succeeds because director Joe Carnahan doesn't let technology overpower personality.
Review: The Next Three Days
More gripping and less pretentious than Crash (2004), Paul Haggis's remake of Fred Cavayé's Pour elle (2008) remains an implausible exercise in contrivance and bogus irony.
Review: The Grey
At the center of this superior stranded-men-picked-off-by-external-threat thriller is Ottway, an anguished loner powerfully played by Liam Neeson.
Review: The Lady
In addition to making dumb action flicks, Luc Besson has another hobby — turning the lives of valiant women into mediocre movies.
Review: The Wrath of the Titans
The folks who gave us the bombastic 3D remake of Clash of the Titans unleash Jonathan Liebesman's Wrath , and it's sensational — if you like being stuffed into a trash can and rolled down a hill.
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Topics: Reviews , Liam Neeson, Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, More

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