The movie ‘Taken’ (scripted by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen and directed by Pierre Morel) dispenses with any wishy-washy details like political correctness or moral ambiguity. All we need to know is that Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is the good guy and all the other males are the baddies (this includes the French police).
As a retired CIA ‘preventer’ , Mills knows bad things happen in the world. He’s proved right the moment his daughter Kim lands in Paris having flown from the security (!) of LA . When she is abducted by Albanians to be sold into a life of prostitution, Mills springs into action and proceeds to clock up a massive body count to rescue her.
Neeson’s wrath is such that you almost expect him to yell ‘vengeance is mine’ as he single mindedly blitzes the opposition. As with James Bond movies and the Bourne trilogy you’re required to take for granted that he is indestructible and immune from pain or self doubt.
The rage and unhesitating cruelty he displays is deemed to be justified by virtue of the squalor and depravity of his rivals. The vigilante ethos of this one man killing machine rapidly becomes the sole focus of the fast moving movie. Like Charles Bronson’s mission to rid the world of muggers in Death Wish. Neeson’s methods are equally ruthless and the pleasure of the movie lies solely in seeing the villains picked off one by one. In this respect it’s like the invigorating (if mindless) thrill you get from eliminating the bad guys in a computer game where there is no need to reason why – you just have to do or die.
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