Movie Review: Taken

Ex-Army special operations soldier tries to balance home life , and his personal specialty of being a human killing machine. Exactly the kind of movie most critics are afraid to say they enjoyed. Enjoying a movie such as this means deriving pleasure viewing psychotic violence in the guise of caring about the main characters loved ones. Well , chalk up THIS reviewer as one who delights in outrageous, yet believable ultra-violence.

Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired super soldier. Bryan's old elite squad want him back on their team , but he wants to make up lost time with his 17 year old daughter. The director, Pierre Morel, sugar-coats the father / daughter relationship a tad too much. However, this particular french director imparts a lot of his French heritage within the movie, which makes this flick a foreign flavored piece of cinema. Apparently , the directors unique elements with location , cast , plot, and action worked with the audience , because this movie gobbled up a box office booty of $150,000,000 cash dollars.

Personally , I grade this movie a super solid B+. The few flaws TAKEN exhibits prevents me from honoring it with a grade of an A. If you like excessive , super violent death and torture scenes, you may wish to give extra credit to this movie , making it an A+. However , if you try to count the number of people Liam Neeson kills , you would have to have a Harvard degree in advanced mathematics. TAKEN is one hour and 34 minutes. It is absolutely amazing how many people Liam can kill in such a short amount of time. One final note , the type of killings and the violence are extremely diverse. Watch for guns, electrocutions, shooting friends wives, strangulations , buses, bare hands , and more. Liam Neeson must have been exhausted after performing in this tour de force .