The following are the three things I learned about Paris,
courtesy of Taken: (1) Nobody speaks French. The preferred
language of everyone from Albanian sex traders to taxi drivers is crisp
English. (2) Like a sad stereotype, every citizen of France carries a
baguette under their arm. (3) Parisians are totally okay with the
aforementioned Albanian sex traders doing their thing all over Paris.
Well, except for one man, but don’t worry, he’s American (and he’s
pissed).

Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, an uptight divorcé father
struggling to win back the heart of his teenage daughter, Kim (Maggie
Grace). You see, when Kim was a little girl, all she wanted was her
daddy and a pony (nonspoiler alert: She gets her pony!), but her father
was never around due to his job: international super spy! If this
sounds nothing like your life, you are not alone. But keep
reading—we’re almost at the part where the ass kicking
starts.

Like Jason Bourne with an alimony payment, Mills is now retired and
once again interested in his daughter, but she would rather rebel. And
rebel she does—not by stripping, or by dating the first guy she
meets who rides a motorcycle, but by heading to Europe to follow U2
in concert. (Whaaaat? Have the producers of
Taken ever heard of a little group called Phish?) Anyway, once
Kim gets to Paris she is kidnapped by mean ol’ Albanian sex traders (as
every U2 fan should be) and there’s only one man who can save her:
Bono! Just kidding. It’s her dad. Remember? He’s a super spy?

Taken is hampered by horrible foreshadowing and stiff, wooden
dialogue that would be unbearable had it not been for the knowledge
that once the chat stops, the splat starts. Neeson spends the majority
of Taken‘s 94 minutes cracking skulls, snapping necks, and
shooting just about anyone that will stand still. As he gets closer to
his daughter Neeson piles up the bodies of the stereotypical French,
Albanians, and even some Arabs as well. It’s like a big colorful
rainbow of ethnicities, splattered in blood!

Hardly the finest work from the man who once played Oskar Schindler,
Neeson is still oddly compelling and likeable, even when he is
mercilessly electrocuting a man to death, shooting an innocent woman at
a dinner party, or shopping for a karaoke machine. He’s totally the
greatest father ever—as long as you keep your grubby paws off his
daughter.

Taken

dir. Pierre Morel
Opens Fri Jan 30
Various Theaters

Ezra Ace Caraeff is the former Music Editor for the Mercury, and spent nearly a third of his life working at the paper. More importantly, he is the owner of Olive, the Mercury’s unofficial office dog....

4 replies on “The City of Fights”

  1. The “Let’s knock the biggest band in the world(U2) down a few pegs cause it’s the cool thing to do” is getting very fucking old hat…ya know what I mean??

    Give it a rest…jam band revival was so mid 90’s and when U2’s new album comes out on March 3rd…it might shut some of you highbrow art types up..get off your high horse.

  3. “(1) Nobody speaks French. The preferred language of everyone from Albanian sex traders to taxi drivers is crisp English.”

    Really? This comes as a surprise in a Hollywood film? You’ve never seen this before? For reals?

Comments are closed.