Liam Neeson trying to figure out how to use his smartphone. |
With all the hype surrounding Taken 2 I’ve decided to look back on the wonder of the first film and how it appealed to so many divorced middle aged men. Director Pierre Morel’s action thriller stars Liam Neeson as former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative Bryan Mills who sets about tracking down his daughter Kim after she is kidnapped by human sex traffickers while travelling in France.
The movie spends a good portion of the opening act developing Bryan’s attempts to reconcile the fact that he was a workaholic father who loved but neglected his family. His business just happened to be the super awesome CIA spy gig. He accepts that his wife hates him for being an SOB that worked to make a living and just hopes he can be in his daughter’s life. Of course he’s competing with a rich stepdad that can buy ponies while his measly government pension can only get her karaoke machine. Bryan wants to do everything he can to help his daughter achieve her dream of becoming a super diva. Thus while working as a body guard he saves pop star Sheerah from a knife-wielding assailant. Instead of collecting his usually paycheck he request the pop star coach his daughter on how to sing. But alas his daughter doesn’t care about singing lessons; she wants to travel Europe like the cast of the Jersey Shore.
Bryan is totally against two teenage girls travelling to another country alone, but caves because like most middle aged men with teenage daughters he’s a huge pussy that wants his little girl to love him. His ex-wife Lenore also tosses in the fact that he has no right to be so overprotective after being absent for most of Kim's life. Lenore is clearly made out to be a moron that has no trust in her superspy husband’s understanding of international travel. To ease his mind he gives Kim a new cell phone that can work internationally, no doubt paid for from his government pension. At Los Angeles International Airport, he finds out the girls are actually following U2 during their European tour, something his ex-wife kept from him. Bryan who’s super pissed lets the girls go but gives his ex-wife and ear full about how unhappy it makes him feel.
Fifty year old Maggie Grace playing 17 year old Kim Mills. She still looks younger than the cast of 90210. |
While in Paris his daughter’s friend stupidly befriends a stranger which leads to the inevitable kidnapping. Bryan gets the frantic call and immediately goes into CIA mode. Bryan shows up at stepdad Stuart and Lenore's house to flaunt how he was right and they were wrong. While investigating her kidnapping he discovers Kim has probably been taken by a generic Albanian human trafficking ring. The vile villain most divorced middle aged men choose to fight in their fantasies. Bryan travels to Paris and begins to beat the crap out of everyone he meets all in an effort to save his daughter. Generic French people are also the second most hated people on the middle aged American man’s list of people he dreams of beating-up.
Neeson torturing a dude by showing family photos, a practice that has been outlawed by the Geneva Convention. |
Bryan is too late to save Kim’s dumb friend but his virginal daughter can fetch a high price from generic Arab dudes in the underground sex trafficking world and may still be alive. Of course he is betrayed by his French police friend who is in on the scam. It eventually leads to finding his daughter and after killing a bunch more people he saves his daughter and her virginity from the ravages of rich Arab men and brings her home.
They return to the U.S. where she is reunited with her mother and stepfather. Bryan of course does not reunite with his wife because she’s a major bitch and no divorced man wants to be with his ex again but he does earn her respect and pretty much won the argument about the dangers of European travel. It is all divorced men’s dream comes true to earn their ex-wife’s respect and be right about every apprehension they have concerning their children. To ensure the ending has that extra happy ting Bryan also becomes his daughter’s hero a second time when he takes Kim to see Sheerah for her first singing lesson. I guess Bryan doesn’t realize that international pop-stars have to tour Europe to support their albums.
Teen pop stars are the third most disliked people by middle aged American men. |
Taken is just a modern day talkie version of Birth of a Nation appealing to people’s thuggish and racist opinions of society. There is no substance, value or class in its depictions of a divorced American family, or Arabian people. It may have captured the uselessness of France and its people accurately but that does not make up for all its other shortcomings as a film.
Written by
Steven Rogers
Writer
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®