BrianSez's Review

Summary - Very Good 3.5

Get the bad guy movies are great enough, but add to that a search for a stolen daughter when you have ex-CIA stud skills? Awesome. Liam Neeson is made for this sort of stuff, and dare I say he seems in his prime with Taken. Ok, so the writing was not stellar and some of what happens seems decidedly B-movie-ish, but who cares? Selling daddy’s little girl into sex-slavery makes you mad, and you are ready for Liam to kick some ass, which he does in spades. Non-stop entertainment to be sure.

Acting - Good 3.0

This is a Liam Neeson classic, and if you like him at all, Taken needs to be on your to-view list. He seems a little less mature, but nonetheless fearsome – as it should be.

Famke Janssen does a decent job as the witchy ex-wife. No wonder she also did so good as a witch in Hansel and Gretel later on.

Many of the rest of the cast blur together, especially the bad guys. One of the stand outs is Arben Bajraktaraj – who is actually French-Albanian. Maybe that’s where they got the bad-guy ethnicity idea?

Film - Very Good 3.5

Edge - Risqué 2.0

Reality - Glib 1.9

3 Comments

• BrianSez Mar 1, 2013 6:55PM

  Regarding BrianSez’s Review
  So I’ve been told… T2 won’t be on my to-view list any time soon

• jasonhurwitz Feb 27, 2013 9:58PM

  Regarding BrianSez’s Review
  Taken = good. Taken 2 = blech.

• Wick Jan 9, 2009 8:27AM

  Excellent review Tom. I hadn’t heard anything about this movie till seeing a run of trailers for it on TV the past few days. The trailer left me scratching my head since they made it look like Neeson anticipated his daughter’s abduction as payback for something he’d done. Apparently not, which makes the plot setup seem overly contrived. In any case, your review is very helpful in understanding this as a fairly run-of-the-mill action pic.

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