Critic Watch: Taken

Taken is a 2008 action film directed by Pierre Morel featuring Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, and Maggie Grace. It received an overall rating of fifty percent out of one hundred, having many mixed reviews. Josh Rosenblatt from the Austin Chronicle gave it a seventy eight percent, its second highest rating on Metacritc. He discusses why the movie is a hit, saying that it has been a while since Americans have seen a movie where the mass amount of violence is justified. Bryan (Neeson) is on a mission to save his daughter from sex traffickers after she goes on a trip to Europe to see U2. The sex traffickers capture her and Bryan runs around killing people to save her. Rosenblatt argues that although the movie is sometimes unnecessarily violent, it is widely entertaining.
Travis Nichols of the seattlepi thinks that “Taken has gone overboard with the tough dad routine” giving the film a sixty seven percent rating. Nichols says that Bryan, trying to save his daughter ends up being over intense as a hero. Bryan will kill, torture, and get revenge any way he can to save his daughter from the Albanian drug traffickers. He follows her path, finding clues that can solve the mystery of where she is. Although there are some great fighting scenes, it is a bit disturbing the extent Bryan will go through to save his daughter.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-times gives Taken a sixty three percent rating. He claims the movie to be “preposterous” yet “very well made.” Neeson brings a lot to his fatherly character, truly loving his daughter and having a strong drive to find her and save her from the Albanian sex traffickers. It is unrealistic and Bryan is extremely intelligent as an ex CIA agent who uses his connections to find his daughter. The movie is entertaining yet unrealistic to a point where one isn’t sure why certain things are shown in the movie. Ebert makes a good point when he wonders if rich white men who smoke cigars and meet at underground clubs paying for illegally stolen women truly does exist. All in all, the movie is a thriller with a “preposterous” storyline.
Anthony Lane, a reviewer for the New Yorker, gave the movie a forty percent rating and wondered whether Neeson redeemed the film with his presence or did he “degrade himself when he took a role in trash?” Lane claims the movie to be pretty forgettable with Neeson as the starring hunk, attracting viewers by his presence. Other than Neeson, Lane finds the movie to be trash and nothing special.
The worst review Taken received comes from Kyle Smith of the New York Post at twelve percent. He starts out by saying the film is a “thriller so lacking in ambition they should have called it "Paycheck."” Bryan is so devoted to his daughter that he leaves in the middle of missions to go to her birthday parties, trying to be a part of her life because she lives with his ex wife. Smith says that the movie was a ball of confusion between mystery and scenes of violence. They were not done well because no plot with mystery was fully developed while some scenes with gunfights and explosions were “choppy” and ended abruptly to go back and find the mystery plot. Smith thinks Neeson’s accent is as confusing as his acting, taking away even more from the movie. According to Smith, Taken seems to be a waste of time.