https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ZO1io3RSg

Released: January 2009(USA)

Director: Pierre Morel

Run Time: 91 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Cast:
Liam Neeson: Bryan Mills
Maggie Grace: Kim Mills
Famke Janssen: Lenore
Leland Orser: Sam
Katie Cassidy: Amanda
Olivier Rabourdin: Jean-Claude
Xander Berkeley: Stuart
Arben Bajraktaraj: Marko

Dealing with the subject of human trafficking in movies can be very, very tricky.  There’s a fine line between acknowledging and respecting the fact that such an atrocity is occurring in our world today, and making a mockery of the victims of that particular trade.  A movie that’s centered around human trafficking can be an emotional and brutal journey.  There have been a number of movies that have dealt with this particular subject such as Trade and Abduction of Eden.  Those are some of the most recent ones and are fairly tough to watch.  It’s even harder to construct an action movie around the subject, because as before, you want to be able to take the crime seriously enough so it can feel like it’s really happening and you can connect with the characters.  There was a nifty little action-thriller released around the world back in 2007, but didn’t actually hit the United States until 2 years later.  Taken stars Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, and Famke Janssen in one of the most intense action thrillers of the last decade.

Opening in Los Angeles, we see Bryan Mills buy a karaoke machine for his daughter, Kim’s birthday.  When he arrives at his ex-wife’s house to deliver the gift, we also see that Lenore has married an entrepreneur named Stuart.  Apparently there is some tension between Lenore and Bryan.  Bryan used to be a government agent and spent a lot of Kim’s life away in other countries.  A couple of days later, Kim asks her father if she could go to France with her friend, Amanda.  Initially refusing, Bryan later consents and Kim is on her way.  Shortly after they arrive in Paris, they take a cab with a young man to the apartment where they are going to stay.  When Kim is in the bathroom talking to her father on the phone, she witnesses Amanda being abducted.  Bryan tells her to hide and that she’s going to be taken.  After Kim is kidnapped, Bryan makes his way to Lenore’s house to tell her what happened.  After calling Bryan’s friend Sam, we find out that Kim has been kidnapped by an Albanian human trafficking ring, and that he has 96 hours to find her before she disappears forever.  This is a very simple and straight-forward story about a father looking for his child.  The moment Kim is kidnapped, the movie kicks into high gear and doesn’t stop.  There is something to be said about a movie that goes from point A straight to point B and doesn’t deviate.

I gotta tell you, the frantic pace of this movie is absolutely nuts.  It’s a race against the clock, so there really is a sense of urgency that you don’t normally find in thrillers.  Bryan’s character is an expert in unarmed combat so the fight sequences with him are very close-quarters and absolutely brutal.  He’s using martial arts, but it’s not like he’s using kung-fu or something flashy.  No, this is a very efficient and devastating style that he’s using.  He’s also an expert with guns and other forms of weaponry as well as interrogation tactics.  He knows how to find people and get information.  Liam Neeson is phenomenal.  He’s such a great actor and the fact he’s doing a lot of his own stuff in Taken speaks volumes about the man’s dedication to his craft.  The moment Bryan lands in Paris, he begins tearing the city apart looking for his daughter.  A lot of the action sequences really stand out.  One of the biggest scenes is in a construction yard, and not only does it feature Liam Neeson in hand-to-hand, but also one of the coolest car chases I’ve seen in a long time.  For a movie that’s rated PG-13, it really pushes the envelope.  Not only is the subject matter not particularly family-friendly, but the violence is brutal.  When Mills takes out the bad guys, he is NOT gentle about it.  In fact, one of the major scenes has Mills interrogating Marko, the ringleader.  In the US theatrical release, Mills attaches two cables to the chair that Marko is tied to and is hooked up to an electric switch.  The extended/international version has Mills drive two metal stakes through Marko’s legs, before attaching those cables.

There are a couple of issues that mar the experience.  For one, Kim and Amanda are only in the film for maybe a few minutes, but even they come across as irritating.  Kim strikes me as a spoiled brat, mostly because the character’s been raised in a very affluent household.  Next, you would think that Lenore and Kim would listen to Bryan, mostly because he’s been around the world and knows how ugly it can be.  The relationship between Bryan and Lenore is particularly antagonistic at the start.  While Taken does give us an ugly glimpse into the world of human trafficking, it is just that: a glimpse.  We hear about how the Albanians work, but we don’t actually see the process, and while that would be too graphic for a movie, it kind of sanitizes the subject for an action movie.   I would have liked to have seen an R-rated action flick that really didn’t pull any punches when it comes to human trafficking.

Pierre Morel does a fantastic job directing the film.  If there’s a shot that the cameramen aren’t willing to do, Morel will literally get behind the camera and make that shot.  While some of the editing is a little hectic, it’s still pretty easy to follow, unlike the film’s sequels.  Taken was Morel’s second big directing gig after the phenomenal District B13.  The man knows his way around an action film, considering that he was also a cinematographer for films like The Transporter.  It’s just a shame they couldn’t keep him for the sequel films.  They would have been better for it.  Liam Neeson is the real star of the show here.  The man has incredible range as an actor.  When I first saw him in a supporting role in Krull, he was very memorable.  He’s definitely come a long way since then.  He’s now an A-list actor that has a stunning filmography.  Sure, he’s had his flops, but I think his successes speak for themselves.  When it comes down to it, Taken is a very good, white-knuckle thriller that stands out from the rest, if only because of Neeson.  It’s a very simple story that takes a predictable road, but boy is it a ride.  I’m giving the film a solid 9/10.  If you’ve read this post this far, then you know that I’ve reviewed the other two movies, so you should know how this one ends.  The sequels to Taken don’t come close.  Taken 2 rehashes what happened here, and the third film is essentially The Fugitive-Lite.  They’re not terrible, but if you have to see just one, see the first one.  It’s awesome.

Released: November 14(Thailand), April 2015(USA)

Director: Panna Rittikrai

Rated: Not Rated

Run Time: 90 Minutes

Cast:
Dan Chupong: Natee
Nathawut Boonrubsap: Than
Chatchapol Kulsiniwootichai: Pod
Kessarin Ektawakul: Joy

Martial arts films have always been a staple of the action movie genre for decades.  When most people think martial arts or anything to do with martial arts, they tend to think of China.  Makes sense, that’s where kung-fu originates.  That’s also where kung-fu movies truly started.  The United States first got it’s taste of kung-fu and martial arts films when Bruce Lee starred in The Green Hornet during the 60s.  That show really put Lee on the map.  Bruce Lee is the man who really made kung-fu popular here in the States.  I could go on about the history of kung-fu movies, but I won’t.  Recently, with the release of Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior back in 2003, we started seeing martial arts films from other Asian countries outside of China and Japan.  Ong-Bak gave us a new martial arts superstar by the name of Tony Jaa.  While most critics would rightly criticize the stories and the acting in most martial arts movies from Thailand, the one thing they mostly agree on is that the action is hard-hitting, brutal and absolutely spectacular.  Tony Jaa himself has pulled off stunts the likes of which haven’t been seen since the early Jackie Chan days.  Most of these movies from Thailand center generally center themselves around the art of Muay Thai, or Thai Boxing.  It’s a brutal and powerful style that primarily utilizes elbows and knees.  We can thank Tony Jaa’s predecessor, Panna Rittikrai, for truly introducing movie audiences to the wonders of Muay Thai.  Vengeance of an Assassin is the latest and last release from Mr. Rittikrai.

Story?  What story?  You don’t watch a movie like this for the story, but I’ll address the story later.  What I will say is that Vengeance of an Assassin opens with one of the craziest action sequences I’ve seen this side of Ong-Bak.  Extreme soccer?  Oh, yeah.  It’s wildly choreographed with Dan Chupong performing really wild stunts along with Nathawut Boonrubsap(say that name five times fast).  It’s a dream sequence, but it’s completely nuts with no wire-work(that I’ve noticed).  You’ve got stuntmen jumping over boats, landing in piles of burning coal and kicking around a soccer ball while beating the living daylights out of each other.  THAT’S how you open an action movie.  The other action sequences are absolutely brutal.  There’s a fight scene where Dan Chupong is trying to protect a girl from a group of assassins in a garage, and he uses that environment effectively.  People are getting hit left and right with really heavy objects including a sledgehammer.  I haven’t cringed this much since Tony Jaa took on 50+ goons in Tom Yum Goong.  It doesn’t stop there.  Oh, no, the movie goes all out to thrill its audiences.  There’s a funny little fight scene with a Chinese doctor that’s amazing, but the real centerpiece of the film is the train sequence.  That is a scene that is completely bonkers.  It ends with some pretty brutal CGI, but it is very satisfying.  This movie absolutely delivers on the action.  You’ve got big explosions, gun fights, and fight scenes that are mind-blowing.  I recommend the movie based on the action alone.  But, we do have to address the story, which is……abysmal to say the least.

The film stars Dan Chupong as Natee, who becomes an assassin to discover the people who murdered his parents.  Along the way he saves the life of the niece of a local politician.  Than, played by Nathawut Boonrubsap, trains by secretly watching training videos until he becomes equally impressive as Natee.  It’s your basic humdrum assassination story that isn’t really all that great.  The acting?  It’s serviceable but it’s not exactly Oscar-worthy, or the Thailand equivalent thereof.  When the film slows down, it really slows down.  Thankfully, it doesn’t slow very often.  Any potential character development is eschewed in favor of major ass-kicking.  I’m not going to say a whole lot about the ending of the movie, but I will say that it is anti-climactic.  After all the awesome action sequences and stunt-work, the movie ends with a kind of a whimper.  It’s too bad, really.  The rest of the film is actually pretty phenomenal.  The direction by Panna Rittikrai is pretty solid, and he knows how to make things fun.  He leaves the stunts and fight choreography to his stunt team.

Vengeance of an Assassin is the final completed film by Panna Rittikrai, who passed away July 20, 2014 of multiple organ failure.  This man was a pioneer of sorts when it came to film-making in Thailand.  He was one of the biggest and well known actors and stuntmen in that country.  He leaves behind an incredible legacy of martial arts stars that include Tony Jaa, Jeeja Yanin, and Dan Chupong.  But he also leaves an indelible mark in the martial arts genre of movies that have raised the bar in terms of intensity and choreography.  Vengeance of an Assassin is quite the swan song for Panna Rittikrai.  The film has its…issues, but the action alone makes this movie worth watching as it reminds me more of Ong-Bak than anything else.  Vengeance of an Assassin gets a respectable 8/10.

RIP Panna Rittikrai(1961-2014)

Released: October 2012

Director: Olivier Megation

Rated: PG-13

Run Time: 92 Minutes

Cast:
Liam Neeson: Bryan Mills
Famke Janssen: Lenore
Maggie Grace: Kim
Rade Serbedzija: Murad Krasniqi
Leland Orser: Sam

If it seems like I’m reviewing this movies in reverse, I am.  In the case of the Taken movies, I feel it’s appropriate to save the best for last, which means, I’m saving the original movie for last.  It strikes me as a little unusual for certain movies to get sequels.  Taken didn’t really strike me as a particular candidate for the whole sequel thing.  As I’ve mentioned before, a good sequel will not only meet audiences expectations but exceed as well.  You want to provide something that’s familiar will adding in something new.  A lot of major blockbuster sequels do that to a varying degree.  A film-maker will back himself into a corner if he’s not careful.  What I mean by that, is that if he ends up retreading the same kind of material that the original film had laid down, people really aren’t going to find the sequel to be worth their time.  Don’t get me wrong, I have no problems with more of the same, if it’s done well and still adds something fresh to the mix.  Unfortunately for the Taken sequels, we don’t really get anything new here.  It’s all rehashed, either from the original picture or other movies.  The lack of originality can seriously hinder somebody’s enjoyment of a film.  If it’s something you’ve seen before and done better, what’s the point?

Taken 2 begins in Albania, as we witness the funeral of the men who were killed by Bryan Mills in the previous film.  One of men, Marco, was the son of the Albanian mafia boss, Murad.  Devastated by the death of his son, Murad vows revenge on the man responsible for his son’s murder.  Later, we see Bryan Mills parked out in front of his ex-wife’s house waiting for Kim, so she can finally pass her driver’s test.  As it turns out, Bryan’s ex-wife had been planning a spring break vacation for her and Kim when Lenore’s husband cancels all their plans, so Bryan invites them to Istanbul after he’s done with a job.  No sooner than after they get their rooms at their hotel, Lenore and Bryan set out on a date when Bryan notices that they are being followed.  Having her leave the car and find a way back to the hotel, Bryan is attacked by several members of the Albanian mafia.  He’s kidnapped along with Lenore, but not before calling Kim and telling her what happened.  It seems like the story feels like a fairly natural progression from the first, and to a certain extent it is.  Like the first film, it’s a very simple story, with not a whole lot of surprises.  It’s a very straight-forward revenge tale.  Here’s the problem:  It’s not very believable.  I mean, what are the odds that the boss of the Albanian mob would personally see to the kidnapping of an ex-CIA agent and his family?  You would think that Bryan Mills would have things and people in place to prevent that from happening.  Not only that, but it seems like Bryan’s family seems to be the unluckiest family in the world for them to be victimized for three movies.  For THREE movies!  That’s just plain bonkers, and it’s just so unoriginal that it’s laughable.  Here’s something else to think about: When Bryan is kidnapped, he gets his own daughter to help him.  That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  She doesn’t have training for that kind of thing, despite him talking her through it.  Not only that, you would think that she would be suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder from her ordeal in the previous film.  So, yeah, there are quite a few logical inconsistencies throughout the film.

The one thing I can say about the Taken trilogy, is that they are not boring movies.  There’s plenty of action.  Taken pretty much Liam Neeson a legitimate action lead again.  He does most of his own fighting and physical stuff, because he’s in really good shape.  It also helps that Neeson is a great actor, so not only does he bring the fisticuffs, but he also gives the character that particular level of intensity that the character requires.  I can’t really see anybody else playing the character the way Liam Neeson does.  He’s fantastic.  Famke Janssen is alright as Lenore.  The problem is, like Kim in the first movie, Lenore is the victim.  I guess Megaton felt that Kim needed more screen time and more to do than she did in the first movie, so he attempted to turn her into a quasi-action heroine.  It doesn’t really work.  For one, Bryan is an ex-CIA operative/soldier so he knows how to get out of tight situations.  So, if he can do that, why does he need her?  I’ll be honest, it’s actually nice not seeing Kim as a complete victim this time around, she does have more to do despite the script’s logical fallacies.  Maggie Grace does a pretty good job trying to keep up with Liam Neeson.  The action sequences are actually not too hard to follow, despite the crack-headed editing.  There’s a huge car chase scene that takes place throughout Istanbul which is actually pretty interesting considering that Bryan Mills isn’t the one driving.  Nope, he’s the one shooting, while Kim is driving.  It’s an interesting team-up that doesn’t really add much to the film.  The elephant in the room is the same as in the third film:  The editing.  I’m not sure what Olivier Megaton was going for when he wanted to shoot his movie.  The amount of cuts per scene is unbelievable and hard to follow, at times.  The one thing that you need in a movie like this is to be able to see what’s going on.  Apparently, Olivier Megaton didn’t get that memo.  A lot of the close-ups during the hand-to-hand sequences are nearly incomprehensible, because the editing sucks.  I’m repeating myself here, but every movie that Megaton has directed suffers this same problem.  It smooths out as the film goes on, but jeez, it starts out rough.

If you can make it through the issues with the script, the editing, and the somewhat shallow characterizations, you actually have a pretty decent action movie here.  Of the three films, this one is definitely the worst, but it is by no means a terrible movie.  The villains are pretty much cardboard cutouts with Rade’s Murad being the exception.  He does a good job with the character, despite the character not giving a crap about what his son did that got him killed.  Aside from that, what we have here is a by-the-book thriller with a fantastic performance by Liam Neeson.  It’s okay when you get past the issues, but there are better movies out there, like the original Taken.  I’m not going to say that Olivier Megaton is a bad director.  He’s not.  Check out Columbiana, if you don’t believe me.  That’s a good movie.  So he is capable of some pretty cool stuff,  I just wish he would give his editors some Ritalin.  While Taken 2 has some good things going for it, I just can’t really recommend at as a sequel or stand-alone film.  There’s too much wrong with it.  But I’m not going to give it a bad movie label, because it’s not a bad movie.  It’s just barely above average.  6.5/10.  This one’s a rental at best.

Released: January 2015

Director: Olivier Megaton

Rated: PG-13

Run Time: 109 Minutes

Cast:
Liam Neeson: Bryan Mills
Famke Janssen: Lenore St. John
Maggie Grace: Kim Mills
Dougray Scott: Stuart St. John
Sam Spruell: Oleg Malenkov
Leland Orser: Sam
Forest Whitaker: Frank Dotzler

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Man has a beautiful wife/ex-wife.  Man leaves.  Man comes back to find his wife dead.  Man is framed for his wife’s murder.  Man escapes law enforcement.  Man encounters gangsters….need I go on?  This plot device has been used in so many movies that it’s old hat.  There’s nothing new about it.  Each movie that deals with a man being framed for somebody’s murder ends up following the same bread crumbs.  One of the best movies that features this particular plot is The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.  Awesome movie, very intense and believable.  Well, it was believable for the most part.  It was pretty good.  Action thrillers these days seem like a dime a dozen.  Liam Neeson has been in a lot of action movies since Batman Begins.  One of the most memorable films that he did was a little movie called Taken, where he played an ex-CIA operative who has to rescue his daughter.  It was a solid action movie that really had you on the edge of your seat.  The French certainly have an interesting eye for action….except Olivier Megaton.

Opening in Los Angeles, California, we see a group of mysterious men kidnap a man and take him to an office building where he encounters a Russian mobster who’s looking for money that he’s owed.  Later, the ex-wife of ex-government agent Bryan Mills, Lenore visits Bryan and talks to him about the problems that she’s been having with her husband, Stuart.  A day or so later, Bryan gets a visit from Stuart himself, asking Bryan to stay away from his wife.  Bryan agrees.  Next day, Bryan gets a text from Lenore asking to meet him for bagels.  He returns to his apartment to find her dead.  After eluding the police who suddenly showed up, Bryan is on the run for his life while trying to find out who killed his wife.  Why Taken ended up becoming a film series is beyond me.  The first film was kind of a one-and-done deal.  It didn’t really leave a whole lot of room to move for a sequel, let alone two.  The story in the second film makes a little bit of sense, because in the first film, Liam Neeson’s character kills the man who kidnapped and sold his daughter.  So, in the second movie, the kidnapper’s father enters the fray and tracks down Bryan and HIS family to get revenge.  Taken 3 throws all that out in favor of a more generic “framed for murder” action thriller, and it suffers for it.  You can thank Olivier Megaton for that.  Taken 3 follows very familiar territory.  Yeah, the main character gets framed for murder and he’s being chased by a very persistent cop.  See, the first film was a very straight-forward and simple action-thriller dealing with a very touchy subject, human trafficking.  It had one direction and one basic trail to follow.  But it also had a sense of urgency about it.  Even the second Taken had those same qualities.  But even Taken 2  was a re-hash of the original, and it wasn’t as good.

The makers of Taken 3 decided that it would be a good idea to throw Russians into the mix.  Right from the get-go you already know the plot twists from a mile away and the film doesn’t disappoint in hitting every single one of them.  The cast, for the most part, is spot on.  Liam Neeson is fun to watch as always.  Forest Whitaker is great, as a detective who is almost literally one step behind Bryan Mills.  The character is pretty interesting in that he’s an OCD kind of person, he has unique quirks, and has a very good eye for detail.  Whitaker is good enough to give the character some of those quirks.  Leland Orser reprises his role of Sam who aided Mills in the past.  I’ve always liked Orser.  He’s got an interesting sense of humor and humanity that just suits his character.  Sam has more involved role in this movie, so that’s refreshing.  The one casting decision that I have to question is that of Dougray Scott.  Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a fine actor and it’s not really his fault that he falls kind of flat in this movie.  No, that’s the result of some very bad writing.  Unfortunately, when you cast him in a role that is pretty generic, you can expect the character to be not a very good person.  Because of that, it leads to one of the most generic motivations for a bad guy….money.  Making Russians the go-to bad guys of a movie is an easy fallback, especially when you really don’t have another plan.  They’ve been villains for a majority of films since James Bond, and quite frankly, I’m tired of it.

The action in Taken 3 is actually pretty decent.  We’ve got some pretty intense fist-fights, cool car chases and some pretty decent explosions.  Pretty cool, right?  It’s always fun to see Liam Neeson kicking someone’s ass left and right and shooting up the joint.  It would be a lot better, though, if you could see what the hell was going on.  And this is where we get to the problem of Olivier Megaton.  His style of film-making is so hyper-kinetic it makes Michael Bay’s movies seem coherent.  Aside from the whole shaky-cam thing that’s really freaking old and has no place in an action movie, the editing is insane.  The first action sequence has Liam Neeson jumping out of a window being chased by cops.  Most of the shots during this sequence don’t last more than one or two seconds.  It’s like the editor went to the Michael Bay School of Editing, and injected the process with crack.  The editing eases up later on, but it’s still one of the main issues in Olivier Megaton’s movies.  It was present in Transporter 3, Colombiana, and Taken 2.  Colombiana actually ended up being a pretty good movie as Megaton showed some restrain in that regard.  He is clearly capable of making a really good action flick.  So why doesn’t he?

Taken 3 isn’t a bad action movie.  It really isn’t.  There’s a lot to like here.  Liam Neeson is still pretty good, even though he’s starting to show his age, but he doesn’t lose any of his intensity.  Leland Orser’s group of security specialists are given a more significant role in this film and I think that’s fantastic.  Watching Whitaker’s character follow all sorts of clues to get to the truth is pretty compelling, even though it’s kind of ridiculous.  As far as threequels go, you could certainly do worse than Taken 3.  While I don’t think Taken 3 was ever going to be a great movie, there a lot of fun moments, like in the second movie.  It’s just a shame that Megaton’s editor is constantly on crack and making things confusing, even if the plot really isn’t.  One other thing I should mention, each of the Taken movies has been release on home video with an alternate Unrated cut, which feature more action and language.  Each film has pushed the PG-13 envelope.  The unrated version for Taken 3 features a lot more f-bombs and blood.  I’ve already made my opinion known on extended and unrated version of films.  The rating I would have to give Taken 3 would be a 7/10.  It’s entertaining enough, when you get past the psychotic editing.  The film is utterly predictable and features some of the most generic villains I’ve ever seen.  But Liam Neeson and Forest Whitaker help elevate what is otherwise a very generic action movie.