Director: Pierre Morel
Writer: Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen
Cinematography: Michel Abramowicz
Editor: Frédéric Thoraval
Music: Nathaniel Méchaly
Notable Cast: Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, David Warshofsky, Holly Valance, Katie Cassidy, Xander Berkeley, Olivier Rabourdin, Gérard Watkins, Arben Bajraktaraj, Nicolas Giraud, Camille Japy, Fani Kolarova, Héléna Soubeyrand, Nabil Massad, Goran Kostic, Jalil Naciri
I remember reading Star Magazine when I was a kid, as my dearly departed mother, God bless her everlasting soul, was an avid movie watcher, and bought the latest issue every week at the supermarket. She loved the goings on and happenings of the jet set and their children. She liked all kinds of movies, but one particular genre really got her going. You see, one of the main reasons my mother married my father was because he was big and tough, she LOVED that, and saw him as her protector. Despite whatever failings and tribulations they endured, she could always count on him to bust some heads if someone ever tried to fuck with her. From high school on, my father was her sword and her shield. All is a long way of saying she REALLY loved movies where a man has to save his girl from death or worse. And there were none she loved more than 2008’s Taken.
In fact, she’s the one who turned me on to it when I would usually not even pay attention to such a flick. She must have seen it a hundred times, easy. Back in 2010 or 2011, the movie was playing on all the iterations of HBO on cable… HBO, HBO 2, HBO West, HBO Signature… HBO Zone? Was that a thing? Shit, I can barely remember. But it was on heavy rotation on all those channels, to the point I think she was watching it every day. No doubt in my mind I get that trait from my mother. Only other person I know who can watch a movie repeatedly back to back to back. But Taken? The schlocky foreign produced action flick starring Liam Neeson, who until then was basically a standard drama actor in shit like Kinsey and Michael Collins? Get the hell out of here.
And it was produced and co-written by Luc Besson? I know he’s got his fans, but don’t count me as one of them. La Femme Nikita was boring. The Professional was boring (great fucking score though). The Fifth Element had some good visuals, but the goofiness, and Chris Tucker (god, does he suck) killed it. Lucy? Get the fuck outta here. Then he did a bunch of kids movies before coming back with the sci-fi head scratcher Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
You’re gonna think I’m nuts, but despite its many, many flaws, Valerian is probably Besson’s best movie. It may sound stupid, but there was a certain charm to it. What do you want from me? I have very weird taste. I just can’t really get with the guy, though. Maybe it’s cause of the French aesthetic? Something lost in translation? No idea. The fact he co-wrote Taken was not a selling point for me. It was more a curio, like, “Wait, Luc Besson wrote THAT? Huh, weird. Ok, moving on…”
But you know what? My mother was right (as she usually was. Another in this genre she loved was the Cole Hauser starring Paparazzi, which is one of the best B-movies of the 21st century, seriously. If you haven’t seen it, check it out)! Taken is fucking genius! Once Neeson gets that phone call from his daughter, this movie grabs a hold of you and… Does. Not. Let. Go! It’s brutal and tender and, for a mainstream flick, defies studio conventions at most every turn. Thank God this movie was made in Europe, outside the studio system. Methinks the sequels had that studio disease, which is why they’re awful. But the original? Instant classic.
This begs the question, though, which no doubt you must have been wondering… how are the 1ST 5 Minutes?
1ST 5 MINUTES
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8q3cz2
Interlaced video images of a young girl’s 5th birthday party as she excitedly opens presents, accompanied by somber piano music (nice contrast). Our first look at Famke Janssen (LOVE!) as the young girl’s mother, and just as she blows out the candles on her cake, we cut to a dark, quiet room, and Liam Neeson waking up in a chair, holding a framed photo on his lap (apparently, he dreams in video?).
He turns the light on, contemplates the photo, then places the framed picture on the sidetable next to him, it’s Maggie Grace on horseback. Next to the photo we see the chyrons for the title, Taken. What a beautifully composed shot. Simple, but effective. Love how low key this is, connoting Neeson’s isolation and loneliness without saying a word.
The next scene is Neeson at an electronics store he keeps returning to for a particular karaoke machine he’s contemplating buying. Cut to him wrapping the present himself, and being extremely particular and careful to wrap it perfectly (with wrapping paper designed for a 3 year old’s gift. I love this. Shows how out of touch he is, but also how he sees his daughter, she’ll always be his little girl).
Turns out he’s taking the gift to his daughter, now turning 17 and living with her mother (Famke, Neeson’s ex-wife) and stepfather, Stuart, played by the AMAZING Xander Berkeley, at a huge birthday party in a gigantic mansion in Los Angeles. It’s clear there’s still antipathy between Janssen’s Lenore (she corrects Neeson when he calls her “Lenny”) and Neeson’s Bryan Mills. He wants to give the present to his daughter, Kim, now turning 17, but Janssen tries to stop him, only to be thwarted by Kim, played by Maggie Grace, running over to give him a big hug.
Firstly, pay attention throughout the film to Maggie Grace and the way she runs like a 6 year old in nearly every scene she is in. It’s hilarious. Not sure I would have noticed had it not been for my mother pointing out this little fact. But once you see it, that’s it, you’ll never unsee it. Funnily enough, it seems others have noticed, and one guy even cut all her running into a compilation:
Second, what I find most interesting is how, despite the implication that Neeson was an absent father, he seems to have a great relationship with his daughter. She is very happy to see him and gives him a big hug. It would have been so easy, and cliché, for them to have a crappy relationship that he must “save” by saving her. But no, they do the opposite, which is way more interesting and complex. They have a solid relationship, but one where he does not measure up. He feels inferior when he sees what Stuart can provide for her. He can provide nothing that Stuart can’t… except this one particular thing he’s good at. A thing that in any sane reality his daughter would never need and he’d never have to give.
She’s excited at the karaoke machine, which Janssen is dismissive of, as she thinks Kim stopped wanting to be a singer when she was 12. Kim hugs her father again and whispers into his ear that she still wants to be a singer. Nice little moment between them, right before Stuart, her stepfather, completely steals the show by bringing out a goddamned thoroughbred as his gift. She freaks out and immediately runs (!) away from her father and mother to hug Stuart and greet the equestrian. Neeson can’t compete with Stuart’s riches. Janssen knows this and gives Neeson a shit eating grin, like she’s rubbing it in. Stuart comes over to greet Neeson, and he’s perfectly nice, zero antipathy between them.
This is also an interesting choice. As is the casting of Xander Berkeley, who is almost always cast as a scumbag or villain, but not here. It’s a nice twist. And knowing cinema and typecasting, you half expect there to be a reveal later on that he’s behind the kidnapping or sex trafficking, otherwise why cast him? But they wisely don’t go there (cough cough Taken 3 cough cough, which not only uses that tired device, but moronically enough they RECAST Berkeley and replaced him with charisma blackhole Dougray Scott as Stuart! Insane! You have Xander Berkeley as the stepdad and finally use the character as a villain in the third movie and you recast him?!?! Just one of many reasons the sequels were fucking awful. Every shitty studio tripwire this film avoids, are enthusiastically tripped in the sequels. UGH!). Neeson stands there, staring at his daughter on the horse, somber piano music kicks in as he stares down at his gift, so small and insignificant compared to the equine. Lovely shot of him standing there alone with the small gift at his feet.
Cut to him picking up photos he had developed from his disposable camera (yep, definitely in the pre smartphone era!), and him again alone in his apartment as he places the latest birthday picture of Kim in the album with the rest of her birthday pics from past years.
And that does it for the 1ST 5 of Taken. Personally, I think this opening is great, and belies the breakneck pace the rest of the film will soon be on. It’s nice to start such a wild picture in such a quiet, human way, establishing the love Neeson has for his daughter, despite not being in her life the way he’d like. Also establishes, at least for now, there’s nothing he can really give his daughter that others cannot provide, and provide much bigger and better.
So, while these 1ST 5 don’t really get at the brilliance of the rest of the film, it serves as a nice place setting, and already has a great score, at least one great shot, and a terrific mood. If you didn’t know what movie you were watching, you’d think this was a drama about a father trying to reconnect with his daughter. Tastes may vary, but I like the sort of “bait and switch” here. Would I keep this movie on if I didn’t know what it was ultimately about? Maybe, maybe not. But these days it’s nearly impossible to watch a film in a vacuum, hell you just see the poster for this and know what’s in store. And knowing that, there’s NO WAY I’m taking this movie off at this point.
The rest of the flick
As Neeson is looking at the picture book, his doorbell rings, and here we see more of that great casting from director Pierre Morel and casting directors Ferne Cassel and Nathalie Chéron. At the door are three guys who we soon learn used to work with Neeson for the U.S. government, though what they actually did still seems mysterious. The three buddies are played by three great actors, Leland Orser (who I first came to know in Alien: Resurrection), David Warshofsky (who I first saw as the pimp in the Paul Walker film, Running Scared) and Jon Gries (who I first saw in the TV show, Lost, which weirdly enough is where I also first saw Maggie Grace).
The entire scene is basically exposition, not only establishing that Neeson left the government to be closer to his daughter to try to build a relationship with, but also establishing that these 4 were in some pretty hairy situations in their careers. It’s not a great scene, as exposition dumps rarely are, but it’s not bad, and that is mainly due to the casting. I could watch these guys read the proverbially cliched phone book. At the end of the scene, they ask if he’d like to make some extra money by helping them out on some security detail for a pop star’s concert, which he ultimately agrees to.
I have to say, while not terrible by any means, the whole sequence with the security detail for pop star Sheerah is so unnecessary. As the audience, it’s enough to know Neeson worked for the government overseas in some incredibly dangerous situations. We don’t need additional setup for what a “bad ass” he is. How much better would this film have been if the first hint we get of how dangerous he could be to the wrong person was when his kid gets taken?
All of a sudden he’s pulling out this crazy equipment from some go bag (or go attaché in this case!) and you’d be like “oh shit!” But as it is, they already set up this fact so it’s not really all that surprising later on when he leaps into action like a tenured professional of the security services of the U.S. government. BUT, and it is a big but, I do love how this sequence ends up serving as a bookend for the very last scene of the film. Yes, I’d prefer the movie dispense with this unnecessary sequence, but at least they salvage it at the end in a nice moment between Neeson and Maggie Grace.
One last note about the three spy buddies is how much I love there is no twist when it comes to them. In a studio picture, they’d either be in on the kidnapping for some dumb reason, or it’d be revealed in the third act that they were there helping him the whole time, swooping in as some deus ex machina to save the day when it looks like all hope is lost. But no, NONE of that studio bullshit slop is being served here. Much like Xander Berkeley’s character, they don’t go for the cheesy bullshit that infects so much of modern action cinema which piles twist upon twist to little or no effect.
After this sequence we FINALLY get the set up for the main story, that being how Neeson’s daughter Kim, and her friend Amanda, want to go on a trip to Paris to stay with Amanda’s cousins and see all the art museums Paris has to offer. He thinks she just wants to have lunch with him, which he’s excited about, but once his ex-wife shows up with her, he suspects something is up. Knowing the world the way he does, he does not give her permission to go, which sends her running (again) away in tears. I must say, Maggie Grace does a good job of playing someone more than 7 years younger than her actual age, but the constant running and goofiness undercuts her perf a bit. Reminds me of Tom Hanks in Big, at no point when he is still a little kid does he act nearly as goofy and childlike as he does once Hanks takes over as the adult. I notice this all the time in flicks like that. Actors have a really hard time “playing” kids and end up acting like kindergarteners. I put that on the director. Rein those actors in, Pierre!
Obviously he gives in later, or we wouldn’t have a movie! He gives her some conditions, like calling to check in every day on an international cell phone he pre-programmed with his number. I absolutely LOVE later on once she’s in Paris, we see a close-up of the phone in her purse as his call goes unanswered, and the phone reads “DADDY Calling.” Remember, he’s the one who programmed the phone. Even though she has only called him Dad so far as we can see, he still thinks of himself as her Daddy. How sweet is that?
It’s funny, cause for my entire life until their deaths, I called my mother and father, mommy and daddy. I never changed once I got older to Mom and Dad, why would I? Their names were mommy and daddy! Needless to say this caused me much grief among friends growing up and even my wife, who thought it was a major red flag when she met me. Which is hilarious, cause I guess it is. My own son has taken to calling me Dad instead of Daddy, which I’m not a fan of. My daughter still calls me Daddy, and promises to always call me Daddy, but she’s still little, plenty of time for her to change her mind. Which would be sad. My mother made a needlepoint for my old man when my older sister was born, it read, “Any Man Can Be A Father, It Takes Someone Special To Be a Daddy.” I feel the same way. I’m Daddy. I hate that the term has been sexualized. “Buncha fuckin’ preverts” (sic).
He insists on being the one to drive her to the airport, which gives Neeson and Grace a nice little scene together, further establishing their relationship, and how she was a bit scared of him while growing up, because he was so mysterious, gone all the time, and only told he worked for the government. He explains very vaguely what he did, “a preventer,” to which she jokes about him being a spy. Once they’re at the airport, he discovers that her real plans are to travel Europe following U2! U2! Fuck man, even in 2008 it was a stretch that any teenager would be into U fucking 2 so much that they’d wanna tour with them? Insane. Neeson kind of flips out, but Famke reels him in, and gives him a small guilt trip. The writing in this scene, and the entire film, is wonderful. I really give credit to Besson and Kamen. They write small scenes with purpose, force, and wit. Very well done, especially for a film in this type of genre. It’s rare.
Neeson takes his signature photo of her with his disposable camera (a photo that will recur throughout the picture, to great effect) and right before she disappears around the corner, she turns back, in that sequined denim jacket that could be a character unto itself, and says a tender “I love you” to her parents. Some would say it’s too on the nose, too maudlin and phony.
But those people are heartless assholes.
It's amazing we’re twenty minutes into this picture and she hasn’t even been taken yet. That Sheerah sequence really fucks up the timing. Kim and Amanda, played by the gorgeous Katie Cassidy, FINALLY get to Paris, and are clearly excited. As they wait for the taxi, they’re approached by Peter, played by Nicolas Giraud in a fantastic little performance, who offers to take their picture (another photo that plays a big role. The use of photos throughout the film are great, from the opening photo of Kim on the horse, to the photos of her in the album, to the photos of her from Neeson’s camera, to the photos on her own phone, the film uses the device quite deftly, and it never feels tired or played out).
He then inquires, “You know, taxis here are so damn expensive, want to share?” His French accent is fantastic. My wife and I use this line all the time, it’s so good. They accept his offer (though Kim lightly objects, she IS her father’s daughter), and their fate is sealed. It’s the power of film that you can watch a movie countless times and still hope the characters make different decisions. Every time I watch this I’m like begging them in my mind to just say no to this. But, alas…
Peter drops them off at the cousins (who we learn are not there, much to Kim’s chagrin), and promptly calls someone on his cell phone to share their location. Yes, it’s a bit ridiculous how quickly this all goes down, and how they’re kidnapped literally the minute they get off the plane. But it’s a movie, relax and enjoy the ride!
Once upstairs, they’re excited to be on their own in a truly dope apartment, and Amanda reveals that she is going to sleep with Peter later that night at the party he invited them to, and gives a clear hint without saying so that Kim is still a virgin. This is a key fact that will be referred to at least 2 other times in the film.
Neeson is trying to call her, but she’s not answering, she finally picks up as she makes her way for the bathroom. After a few admonishments for not calling him, she sees across the way that men have broken into the apartment and taken Amanda! It’s an incredibly tense sequence. Here we see Neeson spring into action and immediately start recording the phone call while giving directions to Kim.
The moment she’s dragged from under the bed, with that scream that reverberates through the rest of the film, is truly upsetting. They immediately cut to Neeson’s face, and we only hear her abduction. Neeson’s acting here is top notch, and at least for me, my eyes are welling with tears just as his are. He absolutely nails this scene. LOVE when he closes his eyes and calmly tells her, “they’re going to take you.” It’s powerful. And when the slaver picks up the phone, and we just hear him breathing into it as the camera pushes in on the external speaker… YES! This is pure cinema right here. Neeson takes him off the speaker, and gives one of the greatest mini-monologues in film history. It’s been parodied countless times, but that’s only because of how good it is. The whole thing needs to be seen and heard in it’s entirety:
“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”
After a long pause we get the succinct, “Good luck” from the slaver. Iconic. It doesn’t get better than this. You want to kill the guy and you haven’t even seen him. From this point on, we are only in Neeson’s POV, and it’s thrilling. It doesn’t let up for a second.
He goes to his ex-wife’s house, and informs her of what happened (is anyone gonna call Amanda’s parents? Anyone?). She’s freaking out as Neeson goes through Kim’s room looking for any clues, flips through her diary and quickly spots a pic of him and Kim when she was little (another photo). When they’re informed by Leland Orser’s Sam that based on the recording Neeson gave him of the call, the slavers are Albanians who specialize in sex trafficking, he tells them they have 96 hours to track her down, or she’s gone forever. Famke Janssen’s scream as they overlay Kim’s scream when she was taken is fantastic. Great sound design and editing here as they cut to Neeson on Stuart’s private plane to Paris as he plays the recording of Kim’s abduction over and over and over. Nice dissolves here as he replays that amazing, “Good luck.”
Once Neeson lands in Paris, with an establishing shot of the city, which is the last time we see the Eiffel Tower (no tourist shit here!), he immediately sets about trying to find his daughter. The film at this point does not stop for a millisecond. And there’s no bullshit cutaways to Janssen at home crying and regretting letting Kim go, no cutaways to see what’s happening to Kim or any of that bullshit. It’s SO good. You’d think other filmmakers could take this cue, but no, they stuff these films with so much filler they’re falling over from the bloat. Taken is lean as fuck. It’s one of the film’s very best attributes.
He's able to find Peter through a very movie-ish plot device, namely he finds the SD card in the phone he gave Kim, uses some internet café kiosk to view the pics, until coming to the picture Peter took of them, complete with Peter’s own reflection just out of focus, enough to where you can’t make him out. Neeson simply presses a “process” button and it magically adds pixels to where you can clearly see Peter’s face. I see this shit all the time on Law & Order. Yeah, it’s lazy, but whatever, I’m so invested at this point in him finding his daughter and fucking up the slavers that I just don’t give enough of a shit.
A nice cut from the photo of Peter to him at the airport, awaiting more victims, victims who are pointed out to him by someone else, presumably higher up the food chain than him. He’s directed to follow a tall blonde coming off the plane, and the actor, Nicolas Giraud, does this great thing, where he humanizes Peter for a second… he looks down, contemplative, where you almost see the regret in Peter’s face this is his lot in life. Who knows, maybe he’s being blackmailed to do this, maybe they have his sister? No idea, point is this small gesture gives shades to the character, something other films of this genre don’t even bother with. Much like Bad Boys, Die Hard, The Last Boy Scout, Commando, Total Recall, etc, the casting of the bad guys is one of the best aspects of this film.
The following action scene is great, with Neeson jumping Peter right before he can claim another victim (with the same “expensive taxi” line), and shoving him in a taxi and delivering a series of donkey punches to Peter’s solar plexus, nearly breaking his ribs. It’s deliciously satisfying to see Peter screaming for mercy. Peter’s buddy intervenes, drags Neeson out of the car, slamming his head into the pavement, before Neeson recovers and straight up kills him with a throat chop. It’s great. Ultimately, the scene ends with Peter seemingly escaped from Neeson, right before he’s flattened by a truck. While it’s again satisfying seeing his comeuppance, it means Neeson has no more leads. The shot of him walking away, almost lost and definitely desperate, is great, combined with the score and flash edits. Nicely done.
This turn of events forces Neeson to reluctantly contact his old friend in French intelligence, Jean Claude, played by Olivier Rabourdin, who we’ll just refer to as French Kevin Spacey. Dude is a dead ringer. He seems reluctant but helpful, at first, but soon enough reveals himself to also be a piece of shit.
As it is, this scene leads Neeson to the Paris version of 70’s Times Square, where all the hookers hook. After a brief encounter with one of the girls, as a lure for her Albanian pimp to attack him so he can attach a listening device, he sits in his car with a translator he hired, who tells him everything the pimps are saying. The translator guy is great, played by Goran Kostic, completely confused and maybe a little scared even, as he tells Neeson how the pimps are referring to him as an asshole.
Neeson does a great thing here when he tells Gregor he wants to hear every word. He closes his eyes, calms and focuses himself. I love it. Neeson consistently makes good choices throughout this film as an actor. I love Jeff Bridges, who was offered the role before Neeson (and who ended up taking a similar style role in that TV show, The Old Man), but I just can’t see him being as good. We’ll never know…
The next scene at what I can only gather is a sort of pop up brothel at a construction site is one of the film’s best action setpieces. It’s also amongst some of the darkest, most disturbing moments in the film. Neeson enters surreptitiously as a customer, and begins going from stall to stall looking for his daughter amongst all the trafficked prostitutes and their johns, all in these scummy little rat trap “rooms” separated by curtains and string.
It’s really rough shit. Upsetting to think this goes on every day in the real world. He looks in one stall and sees his daughter Kim’s denim sequined jacket, he punches the dude in the stall and reaches for the dark haired girl, but sees it’s not Kim. His attempts at eliciting info about the jacket are met simply with a drugged out, “I’m good. I’m good.” Incredibly dark. Did I mention this movie is PG fucking 13?!? Like, WHAT? I get there’s no nudity or cursing even, but come on, this subject matter is pitch black.
He rescues the girl from the construction site pop up brothel in a nifty little action sequence, that has the film’s best car chase. Car chases are really fucking boring for the most part, including the one in this film toward the end with him racing the boat, but this one is actually pretty tense, and the end payoff with the bulldozer shovel destroying the pimp’s head is quite satisfying.
It’s notable that Neeson does nothing to save the other girls. He never pulls the “fire alarm,” so to speak, like they’d do in a studio picture. He is simply there for his daughter, no time for anything else. Love that. It’s brutal, but honest. If this was the real world, not only would you also not save the other girls, you wouldn’t even be able to save your own daughter. It's only in the world of the movies that one can become the hero of one’s own story. Though we are all the heroes of our own kitchen, to quote Sam Shepard.
Neeson gets the girl back to a hotel and proceeds to administer an ad hoc IV to get her sober and back to health as she sleeps. Neeson is fantastic here, does this great thing where he instinctually wipes the sweat/exhaustion from his eye as he prepares the IV. So good.
The next scene with French Kevin Spacey is notable mostly for the fact of how little the authorities give a shit about Kim, or the rampant sex trafficking going on under their noses. French Kevin Spacey expects Neeson to just get on a plane and go home!??! While his daughter is being drugged up and turned out within miles of where they are? What else is going on here?
Once the girl wakes up, she’s able to provide enough evidence to lead Neeson to where she got the jacket from Kim. The actress here, Héléna Soubeyrand, is fantastic. Imbues her small role with real emotion and heart. When she breaks down crying you really feel for her. Which only underlines the fact that all of those other girls are still left behind to basically die. This is a very serious film. There’s lots of people that bag on Taken and talk shit. Boggles my mind. It’s easily one of the best films of the 21st century, no doubt.
The next sequence at the house with the red door on Rue Paradis contains my Favorite Scene in the whole film.
Neeson pretending to be a corrupt French cop who takes money to look the other way is so good. He pretty much knows he’s tracked down the guys who took Kim, yet he remains calm (“You come to this country, take advantage of the system and think because we are tolerant we are weak and helpless. Your arrogance offends me” is such a great little speech), and toys with them, makes sure he gets each and every one of them to speak, until finally only one remains… Marko from Tropoje!
Arben Bajraktaraj is incredible. His “good luck” is absolutely iconic. Here, no one knows his name, but everyone knows “good luck.” His accent and intonation are deliciously malevolent. Don’t know where they found this guy, but kudos to the casting people. Once Neeson reveals he’s the father they spoke with two days prior, all hell breaks loose and we get a standout fight scene where Neeson takes out the whole room of slavers. Morel’s direction here and throughout the film is near perfect. He shoots action scenes in a highly intelligent manner, and one always knows where one is in the location despite the quick cuts. The spatial talent is on display in a big way, especially in these close quarters conditions, like at the pop up brothel. The fight choreography is really well done. There’s a quickness and a brutality to the hand to hand combat in this film that is oddly satisfying.
After dispatching all the shitbags, Neeson goes door to door looking for Kim, until finally busting down one door and finding Amanda, Kim’s friend. She’s laying there, with dried vomit around her mouth, her eyes open, dead. Incredibly disturbing. Put yourself in Neeson’s shoes, you just found your daughter’s best friend handcuffed to a fucking bed, dead from choking on her own vomit. My God. Neeson and the filmmakers give the moment the proper weight, both with Neeson’s acting and the way the scene ends on a silent fade to black. Extremely well done. (Perhaps now is a good time to call Amanda’s parents?! Or maybe just shoot them a text? I don’t know…)
Amanda’s death makes what happens next extremely gratifying, as Neeson braces Marko by electrocuting his ass. Neeson has a great couple of lines about the benefits of the steady power supply of Western nations as he electrocutes Marko a little more each time he displays insolence in the face of simple questions. Check out the veins on Marko’s neck! No idea if it hurt Bajraktaraj or not, but kudos to him for pushing it to the limit in this scene. Best veins in a movie since Scanners, no joke.
Like the scene where Kim and Amanda first get to the apartment, Marko here confirms that Kim is still a virgin when he finally spills the beans on who bought her. Patrice St. Clair! When Neeson asks where St. Clair is, Marko desperately pleads that he doesn’t know. Cut to Neeson, nearly zero light on his face, a shadow, “I believe you,” then flips the switch on, “but it’s not gonna save you,” and leaves Marko to fry. YES! What a moment. Bryan Mills is nothing if not a bad motherfucker.
Neeson shows up at French Kevin Spacey’s house, pretending to be there for dinner, which makes French Kevin Spacey’s wife happy, as it’s clear they used to hang around back in the day. It’s a tense scene as they sit for dinner. The wife says how much she loves her husband’s new desk job as he’s home for dinner every night with the kids, to which Neeson responds, “Yeah, must be nice coming home every night seeing your kids, knowing they’re safe” as he glares at French Kevin Spacey across the table. When the jig is finally up, and Neeson takes advantage of French Kevin Spacey’s laziness, he shoots his wife in the arm and demands to know where he can find St. Clair. Holy shit! Shocking moment, and amazing.
French Kevin Spacey flips out, obviously, and Neeson does not fucking relent, “It’s a flesh wound, but if you don’t get me what I need, the last thing you’ll see before I make your children orphans is the bullet I put between her eyes. Now, Patrice St. Clair!” French Kevin Spacey has no choice, he looks up St. Clair on his work computer and finds an address and a picture of a guy in a suit.
“You could have made this much less painful if you had been more concerned about my daughter and less concerned about your goddamn desk. Please apologize to your wife for me.” WHACK, he knocks French Kevin Spacey out. Wow. Such great lines in this movie. No dumb puns or one liners when he kills somebody, no goofy shit, just hardcore all the way. Love it and appreciate it. Rare these days.
Cut to a swank party of French elites hosted by Patrice St. Clair, in a tuxedo, at his insanely opulent townhouse, as Neeson surveils outside. Of fucking course the trail leads here to these rich, demonic fucks. He gains entry using French Kevin Spacey’s ID and goes about finding Kim by following St. Clair to an elevator passage inside the house.
After breaking a few heads, Neeson stumbles into a room and again one of the darkest, most disturbing elements of this film unfolds. Rich men sit in separate private rooms as they bid on girls who display themselves on a small, lit stage. It’s positively Lynchian with how creepy it is. Again, Morel’s direction here is fantastic. The moment the last girl turns and reveals herself to be Kim, is absolute devastating perfection. The music drops out, the silence is heavy, as Kim’s drugged out visage looks around in a haze. And Neeson’s reaction, his face, goddamn! I started crying, it’s such a powerful moment, that’s your fucking daughter they did this to, but you also found her.
The mix of intense emotions are all over Neeson’s face and you feel them with him. No other action movie provokes emotions like this one. It is a major key to its enormous success at the box office. It’s not empty action, there’s real soul behind it, and you feel it. This scene confirms that Kim has not yet been raped, as she is “certified pure.” I think this is key. While she’s been through a lot, to put it mildly, at least she wasn’t violently sexually brutalized repeatedly like poor Amanda (BTW, you think her parents know yet?).
The scene when St. Clair and a bound Neeson finally meet is great. Gérard Watkin, who plays St. Clair, is fantastic. Great casting. Equal parts malevolent and effeminate, he makes a delicious villain. His reaction to Neeson saying, “the last girl, I’m her father” is so good. He kind of almost loses his breath for a second, “Oh my…” Neeson says simply, “give her to me.” St. Clair responds, “I wish I could. Honestly. I’m a father myself, I have two sons and a daughter. Let me tell you something, Mr. whoever you are, this is a business, this is a very unique business, with a very unique clientele.” Love the way he says “clientele.” The casting of the bad guys is so important! This guy kills it! Neeson offers to pay to get his daughter back, but St. Clair basically tells him to get lost, then orders his men to kill Neeson, but “quietly, I have guests.”
Needless to say, Neeson escapes, kills all the shitbags, then makes his way for the elevator, where a scared St. Clair begins pleading for mercy, which Neeson is fresh out of. He shoots him in the shoulder, then the other shoulder, then the leg, until St. Clair finally tells him that Kim is on a boat outside that’s leaving in minutes. He laments that it was only business, it was nothing personal. “It was all personal to me!” Shoots him dead. Great moment. Equally great is how the elevator gently hits a St. Clair’s foot as it closes. Little details like that make a film, elevate them from the good to the great.
The final fight on the boat is really good. I love how when Neeson is chasing the boat on foot, he really looks gassed, like so out of breath he is about to throw up. Whether it is acting or method, fantastic shit. You feel his utter exhaustion and desperation, on his last ounce of adrenaline, as Kim is gone for good if he doesn’t catch this goddamned boat! I like how he hurts himself when he jumps down onto the boat, and that he also gets shot. It would make sense that by this point in the story, he is starting to break down. No sleep for days, fight after fight, cortisol pumping non-stop, but he’s daddy, he has to do this!
He cuts his way through all the bad guys and finally comes upon the final boss, some fat old sheik holding Kim at knifepoint. She’s so terrified she doesn’t even see it’s her father until after he blows the guy’s head off. Maggie Grace does a phenomenal job here of selling this moment. Makes me cry every time, and in fact, my wife also cried at this part when we watched it recently. No other action flick does this to you. None. Her line to him is my Favorite Line in the film. “Daddy… you came for me.” How sweet is that? And the first time we hear her call him Daddy. As an audience member, how can you not break down here? HOW?! What an incredibly satisfying way to wrap up the film.
At the airport, Neeson and Kim are greeted by Famke and Xander Berkeley. Famke hugs Kim, then thanks Neeson for bringing her home. She gives him a tender hug, he closes his eyes for a moment, really takes it in. He misses her. He misses his family. Heartbreaking.
As they exit the airport, Neeson says he doesn’t need a ride, and says farewell. Kim gives him one final hug, tells him she loves him (and I’m crying… again!).
My Favorite Shot is once she’s in the car, and looks back at him, as he’s reflected in the window, and it racks focus from her to him. Father and daughter. What could be better?
Now, about Amanda’s parents. Is anyone going to even mention them? No, no they are not. Fucking amazing. And darkly hilarious.
I fucking love this movie. My mother’s instincts were spot on.
In the intervening years, Neeson went on to make 2 shit sequels, as well as a shit ton of cheapo action flicks. Feels like a new one every month. I will say, though, Neeson makes the very best of the cheesy B-movie “churn machine” flicks. His have the highest production value, by far, despite the films still being almost uniformly terrible. Nicolas Cage brings up the second tier. His films are not as polished as Neeson’s, but they’re still pretty good looking.
Bringing up the rear is Bruce Willis and John Travolta. You can’t even believe how bad they are until you’re actually watching one with mouth agape at the awfulness.
And they just keep banging them out, which means they make money, in what may be the most embarrassing aspect of that whole sub-genre.
Taken is lightning in a bottle. There’ll never be another one like it, no matter how hard they may try. Now I hear there’s a Taken TV show? Or there was?Unreal how they refuse to stop beating that horse.
The first Taken was made to be a good film.
All the rest were made to make money.
And you can tell.
The One Sheet
This first one is not bad, but not great either. Nice image of him standing there. Good use of text. A workmanlike poster. It does its job, but unglamorously.
This next one is kind of cool, with Neeson running down a desolate Parisian street, as the specter of Kim as a prostitute hangs over him. I think this is an excellent poster.
96 Hours was the name of this film in some territories overseas. This poster absolutely sucks. Looks like a shitty VHS cover. Awful.
This Asian poster isn’t bad, but still has a DVD-ish quality to it. I do like how sharp the photos are.
This English quad poster is not bad, with some key scenes from the film in boxes behind a towering Liam Neeson with gun. I like the tagline, but come on, spoiler alert! They basically give away the ending. Weird. At least in the first poster, it’s in the first person, so it can be argued it is merely his opinion, but here, they are making a declarative statement, “HE WILL…” Still, not bad.
This last Asian poster is okay, nothing great, but not terrible. Seems to be a theme here. Would love to know what the text says, as it seems to have a voluminous tagline.
And that does it for the 1ST 5 Minutes of Taken. Do you think I’m out of my mind declaring this film’s greatness? I am happy that for once I am in the majority when it comes to a certain film. So many times because of my taste I feel as if I am swimming aginst the tide. The few times my taste lines up with the masses is a special time for me, as I can join the other humans and raise a glass to a real crowd pleaser of a film.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention what a great choice of song they made for the end credits, which starts off like a track from a Philip Glass album. Beautiful music by Ghinzu. Listen to this and then ponder how an action film had this as its closing theme.
See you in two good lucks!