Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Taken to new lows...or possibly some old ones


Saw Liam Neeson in Taken this weekend--and while I was happy to see Darkman get back to his shadowy action roots, I came out of the theatre unable to shake the feeling I'd just watched a violent movie version of Super Mario Bros.

Roughly, the plot goes like this: ex-spy's (Neeson's) daughter gets kidnapped by foreigners running prostitution ring. He ruthlessly pursues her, going through progressively more evil international bad guys and leaving a trail of bodies behind him, desperate to find her before the 96-hour window before she disappears for good closes.

Neeson shoots a lot of people, uses that"very special set of skills" he keeps talking about in the commercials to track down the next boss/his daughter. There are car chases and martial arts and shootouts. And a guy getting hit by a truck.

Among the axis of boss characters/baddies/levels are Sri Lankans, the French, Americans, and finally, some vaguely Middle Eastern baddies whose boss character is a fat sheik I fingered as Bowser right away. (Dude even lives on a castle ship!)

At first, I was okay with this plot because espionage hijinks and violence done well can be brainlessly enjoyable. What bothered me about this tale, apart from the fact that there weren't enough Goombas around, was that like Rollerball, Taken is yet another example of a film in which an American is forgiven all his crimes because the idea of what he is doing is somehow "right." In Rollerball, "Freedom" trumped the lives of dozens of dark-skinned people who'd been killed in action. In Taken, "Family Values" are king.

Not that any father would be blamed for flipping out and torturing and killing a guy for kidnapping his daughter. But at one point (SPOILER ALERT) he shoots his French secret-agent friend (fatally) and his completely innocent wife (twice, nonfatally) after he discovers the man has been taking bribes from the kidnappers.

And there were young children in the house while he was doing this, too.

Dude. C'mon. The kids. They don't have a father now, thanks to you, and their mom's been shot in the arm and leg. Seriously, who's going to make their cereal in the morning? I'm sure even Jack Bauer knows the boundaries.

The second make-me-go-crazy bit of imperialist dogma stems from the fact that the brunette Princess is only spared a whore's fate by the fact that she is a virgin and therefore more valuable on the female meat market. Meanwhile, her slutty blond friend ("Omigod, they got Amanda!") dies a horrible death, having overdosed on heroin in one of the brothels Neeson shoots his way into.

We never see the Princess grieve for her. She gets back to her mom and step-dad in California, all smiles and hugs. And Neeson walks off into the sunset, knowing he's done his job, saved his kid and only killed about seventy people in the process. No one's knocking on his door and asking for his to please come with them. No letters of outrage or lawsuits. Nothing. Neeson's untouchable and infallible.

Overall rating: don't pay full price for this flick. And if you do, try singing the Mario Theme Song quietly to yourself throughout. It might make it that much more enjoyable.

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