Taken 3

TAKEN 3

** SPOILERS **

In the formula-eschewing Taken 3, the glum latest entry from the annual, reliable Liam Neeson Action Thriller Factory and the inevitable finale of the Taken Trilogy, this time Liam Neeson finds himself framed for the murder of his beloved ex-wife Famke Janssen. Prior to this tragedy, Neeson had moved past his ruthless exploits slaughtering every sex-slaving gangster in Albania to be a doting father to Maggie Grace, now a college girl with a live-in boyfriend and a secret bun in the oven. (She never did become a pop star, even after Neeson introduced her to Holly Valance at the end of the original Taken.) Neeson also clearly pines to reunite with Janssen and rekindle their marriage, but he is too honorable to cuckold her slimy current husband Dougray Scott (recast as apparently the same character Xander Berkley played in the original.) This delicate, peaceful balance in his life Neeson has achieved is chucked out the window when Janssen is murdered, at which point Neeson chucks himself out of his own window and goes on the lam in LA, with the cops, lead by detective Forest Whitaker (who eats the warm bagels Neeson eats in the movie so as best to understand his prey), in hot pursuit.

Liam Neeson spends an inordinate amount of time hiding in uncomfortable places in Taken 3. Stalking around Los Angeles undetected, Neeson attempts to investigate who really murdered Janssen by squeezing his six-foot-four-inch frame into the trunks of cars and cramped sewers. To communicate with Grace and see his baby girl, he elaborately poisons her favorite yogurt drink knowing that she will leave class to tend to her diarrhea. At which point, Neeson, who has been hiding in the women's lavatory in her college for God knows how long, meets her in the stall and administers an antidote. (Grace is repeatedly mentioned to be "predictable," but how does Neeson know Grace always goes to the biggest and last stall in the girls lav?) Grace doesn't find any of this weird, but after being Taken and sold into sex slavery, her definition of normal isn't like yours or mine. Neeson also knows the secret underground entry into the city morgue, because why wouldn't the Los Angeles city morgue have a secret underground entry? Neeson's old gang of ex-CIA misfits and golf buddies also get involved in the action this time. It's nice that Neeson has his own set of Expendables. Neeson himself moves a lot slower in Taken 3. You might say he's Taken his time. You might also say he's getting too old for this shit.

What does all of this have to do with a slew of Russian gangsters and Dougray Scott, who's obviously sending signals he's really the villain? Well, Dougray Scott is obviously the villain, having Janssen murdered for her $12-million life insurance to pay back the Russian gangsters he owes money to. And he framed Neeson, knowing Neeson would go on a bloody rampage to kill those responsible. It's actually a pretty decent plan and shows Scott paid attention to the prior Taken movies. (Aside: Dougray Scott was once going to play Wolverine before Hugh Jackman got the role. Can you imagine a world where that happened?) Neeson figures it all out a little too late, only after killing all of the Russian gangsters, including their leader Oleg Malankov, who decided to battle Neeson wearing nothing but a robe and a speedo while sporting a giant erection. Those who attended Taken 3 hoping for the abject thrills of Neeson wontonly engaging in entertaining wholesale slaughter stumble from the theater a bit disappointed; Neeson only massacres a handful of Russians and is careful not to murder any of the LAPD on his tail. Repeated counts of assault on the cops, sure. But no killing. This restraint is noted by Whitaker, who amusingly threatens to arrest Neeson for wire tapping. "That's illegal." So's everything else Neeson does, but hey.

Taken 3 is a rote, mechanical slog, short on giddy thrills and heavy on sorrowful beats of Maggie Grace mourning her mother in their million-dollar mansion. There is nothing as absurdly memorable in Taken 3 as the sight of Grace exploding grenades across the rooftops of Istanbul as a means to give Neeson a GPS fix on her position in Taken 2. The most batshit crazy thing Neeson does in Taken 3 is race a Porsche at 150 MPH and slamming it into the landing gear of Dougray Scott's airplane to prevent him from escaping with Grace as his hostage. What Taken 3 sorely needed was a good laugh. Like, say, when Grace is Taken hostage by Scott, she should have asked where he's taking her. And he could have replied, "I'm selling you to sex slavery in Albania -- like you should have been all along!" It's a pity the screenplay for Taken 3 was Taken 4 granted.

Non-Stop

NON-STOP

** SPOILERS **

"I hate flying!"

Non-Stop is the funniest airplane movie since Airplane! All it's missing is a jive talkin' granny and one of the pilots asking a young boy if he likes movies about gladiators. There is a young girl on the flight, but no one asks her if she's ever been to a Turkish prison. The latest output from the reliably prolific Liam Neeson Action-Thriller Factory, Non-Stop stars Neeson as a CIA agent US Air Marshal trying to stop a kidnapper terrorist from selling his daughter into sex slavery blowing up a trans-Atlantic airliner. An alcoholic loose cannon, Neeson receives a series of text messages mid-flight from a mysterious antagonist threatening to murder a passenger every twenty minutes if a hundred fifty million dollars isn't wired into an account opened in Neeson's name. In his zeal to discover who the villain is, Neeson ends up murdering the first victim for him in the lavatory. Oops. Soon, more bodies pile up from being mysteriously poisoned. Maybe they ate the fish.

Who is the real culprit on this ill-fated flight to London? It could be any of a half dozen shady characters Neeson encounters before the plane took off, including Julianne Moore, who is suspiciously hell bent on acquiring a window seat. Or it could be fellow Marshal Anson Mount, who just comes off like a smarmy creeper. Or it could be the black guy carelessly yakking on his cell phone, or that rat-like guy in the glasses bumming a smoke who claims he's on his way to Amsterdam. According to the Law of Economy of Characters, yes, it's definitely one of them. Neeson only trusts a couple of people on this Flight of Suspicion, one of whom is comely flight attendant Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary from Downton Abbey). Dockery unfortunately has little to do besides grow increasingly appalled as Neeson's actions grow increasingly ridiculous; he holds everyone on the flight hostage and hilariously smacks every suspect around headfirst into bulkheads, counters and seat backs. Neeson's superiors on the ground accuse him of being the one hijacking the plane, plastering his face on every newscast and sending air force fighter jets to shoot the airliner down.

All of Non-Stop is staged with grim solemnity. Neeson gets, at most, two moments to illegally smoke in the lavatory as a release from the relentless pressure of carrying the fate of 150 passengers on his weary Irish shoulders. When the real terrorists finally reveal themselves, Neeson practically has to lead the audience to resist rolling their eyes at the villains' hackneyed explanation tying this act of terrorism to 9/11 and condemning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The real lesson Non-Stop offers is that maximum enjoyment of Liam Neeson action-thrillers is directly proportional to the number of bad guys Neeson efficiently murders. Non-Stop disappointingly isn't about Neeson killing terrorists non-stop like the first Taken was, but still, one would still rather have Liam Neeson creating chaos on your flight than a bunch of motherfuckin' snakes on your motherfuckin' plane.

Taken 2

TAKEN 2

** SPOILERS **

"Listen to me very carefully, Kim. Your mother and I are going to be Taken 2."

In Taken 1, 1 daughter was Taken 1. In Taken 2, 2 people, Liam Neeson and his ex-wife Famke Janssen are Taken 2. It's a twist, see. How is Liam Neeson going to save himself, his ex-wife and his daughter from being Taken again? Shoot all the Takers? Basically, yes. Once again, Albanian gangsters are the scourge of Liam Neeson and his family. The Albanians can't forgive how Neeson blazed a path of destruction across Paris in Taken and lessened the gangster population of Albania by a few dozen. Now the father of the Albanian who kidnapped Neeson's daughter, Maggie Grace, in the first place has vowed vendetta against Neeson. We all know how this will turn out for him and all the Albanians, but the Albanians learned no lessons from Taken 1.

Taken 2 is written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Kamen wrote the first two Karate Kid movies and Taken 2 starts off weirdly, kind of like Karate Kid 2, dutifully checking in on almost every surviving character from the first Taken, like Neeson's ex-CIA drinking buddies and the French inspector who Neeson assaulted at dinner. The French inspector being tortured and killed(?) by the Albanians is particularly pointless; Neeson never finds out about it, nor does the movie ever mention him again. Neeson is by far more interested in helping his teenage daughter Grace pass her driving test. Neeson was Father of the Year for murdering dozens of Albanian gangsters and bringing his baby girl home from sex slavery in Paris, but he loses points for not teaching her the proper way to parallel park ("Use your side mirrors"? No, the right way is to swing your right arm around the passenger seat and park looking through the rear windshield.)

After a lot of interminable set up, Neeson and family finally go to Istanbul so that the Taken 2ing and killing can commence. Trying to re-open amorous relations with Janssen, Neeson's "I'm about to be Taken Sense" goes off as the Albanians close in on him. Despite his best efforts, he and Janssen are Taken 2. Luckily, Grace stayed behind at the hotel and Luckily 2, Neeson somehow has a cell phone on him at all times and the Albanians allow him to make long, detailed phone calls to his daughter about what to do and how to help save them. 

The most amusing parts of Taken 2 are Neeson instructing Grace on how to geo-position a map and what to do with all the grenades Neeson brought to Istanbul. Taken 2 innovates the "I don't know where I am until my daughter detonates grenades across the rooftops of Istanbul" method of GPS (always throw the grenades east), as Grace long-leggedly limbers across the skyline of Istanbul doing the crazy things her daddy tells her to do. Grace then gets behind the wheel of a cab and races with Neeson to the US Embassy, crashing through their guns and barriers, after evading all the cops in Istanbul. Add to the Taken Travelogue: the Istanbul polis are simply unprepared for the reckless driving of an American teenage female student driver.

After the cab containing Neeson and Grace comes to a screeching halt, all the interesting parts of Taken 2 also come to a screeching halt. There's still the matter of rescuing Janssen, but Neeson knows exactly where to go and exactly who to kill to get that last piece of business done. Finally, Neeson comes face to face, father to father, with the Albanian crimelord behind it all, Rade Serbedzija. The following exchange occurs as they attempt to justify why they are killing each other:

Serbedzija: "You killed my son!"
Neeson: "Your son kidnapped my daughter and sold her into sex slavery!"
Serbedzija: "I don't care what he did!"

Okay then. Seems like they could go in circles all day about this. Serbedzija had earlier threatened to carve up Janssen into little pieces and again promised to sell Grace back into sex slavery so she could be used up "by the lowest of men like a piece of meat." Poor Maggie Grace. The Albanians absolutely insist her destiny is going into sex slavery if they have anything to say about it. Neeson objects to this, of course. Despite the threat of more of Serbedzija's sons coming after Neeson's family in Taken 3 to put Grace back into the sex slavery they've got their Albanian hearts set on, Neeson sends Serbedjiza to Albanian Hell. 

Neeson does admit that he's tired, tired of killing Albanian gangsters. Yeah, we all are. Of watching Neeson kill Albanian gangsters, I mean. The Albanians have proven to be hapless villains, stupid and easy for Neeson to rip through with a vengeance. What was shameless fun the first time around feels rote, boring and grating in Taken 2. Taken 3 should find Liam Neeson considerably less motivated to murder even more Albanians, especially if they decide to Taken 3 his daughter's new boyfriend.

Unknown

UNKNOWN

 

** SPOILERS **

Unknown could have used a better title. I have one idea: Nothing Good Comes From Being Married to Betty Draper. In Unknown, Liam Neeson is Bourne again, after a random accident where his taxi drove off a bridge into a river, placing him in a coma for four days. Neeson had arrived in wintry, photogenic Berlin with his wife January Jones for a biotechnology conference.  After the accident, Jones claims she has no idea who Neeson is, and Aidan Quinn has taken his identity, his place in the conference, and his wife. Is Neeson crazy? Is he who he believes he is? No and yes. And no. A desperate Neeson eventually finds Diane Kruger, the woman who drove the cab that went off the bridge and saved his life, and together they blaze a bloody trail across Berlin, bashing skulls in bloody brawls and smashing cars in chaotic car chases, seeking answers for Neeson. Kruger, a veteran of running across the United States with Nicolas Cage hunting for National Treasures, is quite at ease on the run for her life with a guy who could be crazy. Bruno Ganz is terrific as an elderly former agent of the German secret police whom Neeson enlists to help him. When Frank Langella appears towards the end of the picture, Ganz and Langella have themselves a crackerjack scene that ends with cyanide.  (Like Sir Ben Kingsley, I no longer recall a time when Langella can appear on camera and one didn't automatically suspect him as the villain.) Unknown takes the elements of The Bourne Identity - an American amnesiac in Western Europe, shadowy agents trying to kill him, a conspiracy he must unravel his role in, and a down-on-her-luck ex-pat German girl who becomes his ally - and jumbles them around in a preposterous but entertaining fashion.  Neeson is no Jason Bourne; he's not a deadly weapon questioning his existence, he's just an ordinary man trying to make sense of an impossible situation. Or is he?  Unknown has its cake and eats it too.

Taken (***)

TAKEN

Taken stars Liam Neeson as the World's Greatest Dad. When his daughter is kidnapped in Paris and sold into sex slavery, Neeson, a retired government operative, goes ballistic and stops at nothing to find her and those responsible. Taken is basically a two hour version of 24 season one set in Paris with Neeson as Jack Bauer and Maggie Grace as Kim Bauer. There's even a small role for Xander Berkley, who played George Mason on 24, as Grace's wealthy stepdad. I half suspected Nina Myers was behind Grace's abduction. As Neeson searches for his daughter, cutting a path of destruction across half of Paris, killing Albanian gangsters, foreign businessmen, and even a Sheik, Taken becomes more and more implausible and preposterous. But Taken is also an entertaining B action movie that's hugely satisfying on a visceral level. The weirdest thing was Grace, a 25 year old, playing a 17 year old so naive and sheltered, she behaves more like she's 13. She's rich enough for an all-expense paid trip to live in Paris but wears a demin jacket that's been worked over by a Bedazzler. There's a subplot that opens Taken where Neeson is a part-time bodyguard for a pop star and gets her help in possibly starting his daughter on a pop singing career. Wanting his daughter to be a pop star is the one big tarnish on Neeson's perfect-dadditude. After all, look how Britney Spears turned out.