15 years later, it’s still easy to see how Taken redefined the action genre
Liam Neeson and his 'particular set of skills' provided a virtual bridge between the Bourne and John Wick franchises
Film Features Taken
French director Pierre Morel’s Taken came out in U.S. theaters 15 years ago this month, meaning we’ve been able to intermittently enjoy a decade and a half of star Liam Neeson’s attempts to just do Taken again, and again and again and again. And why shouldn’t he? Taken made $200 million past its budget and rebuilt Neeson’s career, and if the premise of “older guy you wouldn’t expect to be an action star” was good in 2009 when he was in his 50s, then it only gets better as he gets older.
Though it quickly became a genuine phenomenon, mostly thanks to Neeson’s instantly iconic speech in which he mentions his “particular set of skills” (Tom Breihan, writing for The A.V. Club, credited the trailer’s use of the speech for most of Taken’s success) the movie wasn’t exactly lauded by critics. Roger Ebert notably seemed kind of baffled by the whole thing, ultimately giving two-and-a-half stars to a film that he figured was well made and fun to watch while also being very, very stupid. Still, Taken effectively redefined the action genre for a while.
If the Bourne movies were vaguely prestigious, then Taken was happy to be a little trashier and scummier, positioning its crusading hero not as a Real Guy who solved problems the way a Real Guy would, but as something like a noble Jason Voorhees who is always in the right place at the right time and can always overcome any obstacle—also he saves young women instead of killing them, which is pretty crucial.
Watching Taken now, it’s somewhat remarkable how Neeson’s character (Bryan Mills, a name you’d have to look up even if you were currently watching Taken and Neeson had just introduced himself by name) almost always has the upper hand in fight scenes. John Wick, the series that eventually re-redefined the action genre, is very much not about a normal guy, but Wick famously takes the occasional beating and feels the effects of those beatings as each movie goes on. Bryan Mills, meanwhile, is more like a superhero who punches a goon one time and immediately kills him or who shrugs off bullet wounds and car crashes.
But that’s really the appeal of Taken. The iconic part of this first movie in the series is Neeson’s speech, which comes—shockingly—nearly a half hour into the film, meaning you have to sit through a third of Taken before the proverbial shit pops off. Once it does, and Neeson switches from sad-sack divorced dad mode (sitting in the dark eating Chinese food, having his old CIA buddies show up for a lonely grill party at night, grimacing as his daughter’s rich new step-dad buys her a pony), the movie never slows down. It’s just Neeson finding a clue to his daughter’s disappearance, Neeson killing some jerk, and then Neeson getting another clue.
It’s his “particular set of skills” in action, and like it was for Ebert 15 years ago, it’s still kind of … frustratingly compelling today. Taken really clips along at a fast pace, making the most of its 90 minutes, and it’s not until you stop to think about the parts that are stupid that you realize they’ve only gotten stupider in the years since.
For one thing, the movie is awkwardly dedicated to slut-shaming, with Neeson’s daughter (Kim, played by Maggie Grace) and her friend Amanda (future Arrowverse player Katie Cassidy) pretty much only getting taken in the first place because Amanda wants to have sex with a European boy that the two of them met immediately after getting off the plane. That European boy, of course, works for Albanian sex traffickers and he leads the bad guys right to the apartment where the two girls are staying.
Once Neeson finds the sex traffickers, it turns out that Amanda is dead and Kim has been sent off to some worse bad guys because she’s a virgin. So one girl is dead because she made the mistake of having pre-marital sex before she was taken, and the other must be rescued and protected at all costs for being—as the movie grossly puts it in a truly terrifying auction scene—“pure.” Also, we never see Kim mourn the nightmarish death of her friend, but we do see her get rewarded for surviving with a chance to audition for a famous pop singer at the end. Do Amanda’s parents know that their daughter was killed while Kim’s dad murdered his way across Paris trying to save his own daughter?
That’s the kind of uncomfortable question you don’t want people thinking about when they leave their otherwise crowd-pleasing action movie. It’s as uncomfortable as the sudden reveal of new supervillains in the final act speaking Arabic who are led by a bathrobe wearing sheikh who just sits in bed on a yacht waiting for his goons to bring him naked women. Every other bad guy in the movie is explicitly referred to as an Albanian, and there’s a scene where one of Neeson’s French contacts talks about Albanians infesting the otherwise crime-free city of Paris, so the ending suggests that the only thing more evil than non-French Europeans is anyone from the Middle East.
That shit sucks. A lot. And as weird as it was when Maverick shot unspecified bad guys in the Top Gun sequel, the alternative is so much worse.
But people don’t remember Taken for that (which is exactly what makes it so off-putting when the big villain is revealed). They remember the simple joy of seeing Neeson make good on his threats to the bad guys. It’s still clear why people liked this movie so much when it came out, but it’s just as clear why people were ready for something new when John Wick came along in 2014 and introduced clever choreography and action sequences created with an artistic eye that things like Taken and Bourne (with its quick cuts) were lacking. Then there are the Mission: Impossible and Fast And Furious franchises, which have steadily ratcheted up the spectacle with each sequel in a way that would strain what little believability Taken had if that franchise were to try something similar.
Taken only came out 15 years ago, but it’s still very much “of its time.” That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the things that were bad about it then are much worse now. And yet, the things that were good are still good, and there’s a good chance that you could recite Neeson’s “particular set of skills” speech before you remember the name of the character he played.
35 Comments
“if the premise of “older guy you wouldn’t expect to be an action star”
was good in 2009 when he was in his 50s, then it only gets better a whole lot sillier as he
gets older.”ftfy
FIFTEEN CUTS IN SIX SECONDS-Oh, did you think I was talking about a knife fight?
Yep I remember that bit. Of the many ways to film a scene, that’s definitely one of them.
One of them? It feels like at least twelve of them.
I wouldn’t mind if AV Club did a slide show ranking of all of Liam Neeson’s action movies starting with Taken and ending with the most recent one where he’s driving around in a booby-trapped car the whole movie.I’d also like to meet the writer who got to sit through all of them so they could rank them.
i think a few have already come out since the car one.
I’m pretty certain that was the implication anyway.
Katie Cassidy’s characters always got screwed over, I guess this movie kind of prepared her for that
This film scared a generation of suburban moms into never letting their daughters travel to Europe.
and posting on facebook about every stranger they see at walmart. momma bear senses have never been tingly-er!
I did always wonder if the US Tourist Board helped to fund this film.
It’s been a while so I might be wrong, but I remember thinking the movie suggests a shit ton of young American women must get abducted from Paris. Like they get the daughter and her friend and then a day or two later Liam Neeson arrives and the guy is in the process of luring another victim or two.
The most 2009 thing about this movie is that it turns out that Maggie Grace and Katie Cassidy have actually lied about their vacation plans. They’re not actually going to stay with Katie’s cousins in Paris, they’re actually planning to follow U2 around the continent on their European tour.
In 2009 that still seemed far fetched that women in their early 20’s would want to be following U2 around. Even in 1999 it wasn’t that realistic. I remember the Saved by the Bell where they were waiting for U2 tickets, and I was like who tf would go thru all that for U2?
Even more shocking, I think they’re supposed to be in high school or just graduated.
There were no high s hool girls on the 90’s that I’m aware that we’re obsessed with U2. I highly doubt 10 years later they all the sudden started to appeal to them.
Very fair point. The U2 reference was between ten and twenty years out of date.
I’d say 20, I don’t remember the TRL stage in an uproar for U2 coming on 1999.
Funny to think that in reality U2 is probably considered Boomer music at this point.
Even then that was silly. Of the bands that have roving followers, U2 doesn’t crack the honorable mention category – if only because of the sheer cost of tickets. It’s not an act you buy extras for in the parking lot from some burnout too high to go inside.
By the third movie, it’s become so much a power fantasy for bitter divorced white guys that his ex-wife gets killed as comeuppance for leaving him.
Well then maybe she shouldn’t have done that.
Never met an honest Albanian.
Wasn’t this movie just the beginning of the more mainstream geezer teasers? I know Seagal had been doing them for a while before it, but Taken showed that every elderly male actor has a retirement plan laid out in low-budget bad action/suspense movies.
I blame “Taken” for whatever that Sean Penn movie was called.
Given what we know about cities like Dubai and wealthy Middle Easterners’ appreciation for western women, I don’t think one of the customers being from the ME is that far-fetched. IIRC the auction was attended by a pretty global set of dirtballs. That particular one just had the most cash – also not far-fetched.
Every other bad guy in the movie is explicitly referred to as an Albanian, and there’s a scene where one of Neeson’s French contacts talks about Albanians infesting the otherwise crime-free city of Paris, so the ending suggests that the only thing more evil than non-French Europeans is anyone from the Middle East.
We are all, like, clear that Albania is in Europe, right? Please guys 🙏
I think with all it’s sillyness it was still more grounded than John Wick. I enjoyed the first installment if JW, I almost fell asleep in second and didn’t bother with 3rd. I mean it’s just too silly and the violence irrelevant.
“French contacts talks about Albanians infesting the otherwise crime-free city of Paris, so the ending suggests that the only thing more evil than non-French Europeans is anyone from the Middle East.”You do realize that Albania is not in the Middle East right? It’s in Europe. It is majority Muslim if that’s what you mean, but so are Malaysia and Indonesia.
“You do realize that Albania is not in the Middle East right?”You do realize that the “non-French Europeans” are the Albanians, and that phrase explicitly recognizes that Albania is in Europe, right?
My mistake, but I still think Barsanti phrased it strangely. The problem with the movie is not that it suggests that the Germans and Belgians are not to be trusted, its that the villains are all foreign Muslims with darker skin .Something like this movie borders on the islmaophobic or this movie could have used a non Muslim villain might have been better.
I like the one where he drives a snowplow and kills people. That’s how I like him- snapping necks and cashing checks!
“the ending suggests that the only thing more evil than non-French Europeans is anyone from the Middle East.That shit sucks. A lot.”Albania is majority Sunni Muslim, in case you missed the bigoted commonality that the movie was bigotedly pointing out. “And as weird as it was when Maverick shot unspecified bad guys in the Top Gun sequel, the alternative is so much worse.”There are only two nations that operated the F-14; the bad guys in that movie are not unspecified.
I feel bad about the thrill I feel when he shoots the innocent wife of the corrupt cop to get him going, and fully feel betrayed when Neeson’s character doesn’t try to save anyone else—the social compact of righteous violence movies to me is trying, which is an imaginary line, but it’s my line.I agree with the gist the article, though I kind of think the analysis of the zeitgeist should widen in scope. I can’t remember when white-girl trafficking panic isn’t in the air, and brutal experts of killing was too—this was post 24, I just looked up Man on Fire yesterday and that’s then, and maybe this is casting the net too wide, but Hostel and its graphic oerve was also in the air, and Taken feels like an almagam of all that too. Not surprisingly I’ve read that when Neeson asked for character guidance, the director just said “He took your daughter” and still think its not funny haha but funny that Luc Besson, producer or something for the Takens didn’t sign the free Polanski petition when it went around because he thought about how young the victim was.Wick I think evolves with more influence from Asian action movies, the principles of being able to see the action updated with more modern styles of martial arts and applied to guns as well, aesthetically, not that Besson & co didn’t watch those as well (I love you Kiss of the Dragon.), but I’d add that John Wick does feel like a culmination and a break not just for it’s chorerography and aesthetic emphasis, but conspicuous choice to limit civilian/outsider/collateral damage. The dog dies in the first, children are threatened off screen in the second, but otherwise, the criminal underworld seems to whole of the world in the Wick movies. Like they have a few more parts of the HK righteous bloodshed in the blend than the righteous violence of other action fare.