Taken

The success of an engaging action movie hinges entirely on the power and presence of its hero. Such a statement may seem obvious to anyone who puts character before plot (or big, loud explosions, for that matter), but judging by the popularity of throw-away trash like last summer's Wanted, the notion of an exciting hero is still a foreign concept to some. More than twenty years after its release, Die Hard is still a great action movie stuffed to the brim with impressive set pieces and great one-liners, but its enduring appeal is due to Bruce Willis's portrayal of cranky anti-hero John McClane. It is the hero that makes the movie memorable and worth watching over and over again. So it is important to note that Taken, the new action movie about a tough guy who goes on a violent rampage to rescue his teenaged daughter, is nothing without the presence of star Liam Neeson.

In the role of ex-spy Bryan Mills, Neeson is a one-man wrecking crew who will stop at nothing to save his little Kimmy from the grubby clutches of the movie's simplistic villains. In many ways, this is Bryan showing off his daddy skills, since he has recently retired from the spy profession and moved to Los Angeles to be closer to his daughter. Kimmy lives with her mother and Step-Father in a lavish mansion that dwarfs Bryan's measly new home.

Bryan wants nothing more than to be a big part of his daughter's life, to prove that is truly worthy of her love. So what better way to do that than to mow down a whole collection of bad guys and bring your daughter back home safe and sound? Sure, Kimmy's Step-Dad has more money than he can count, but her real Dad is an unstoppable force that brutally murders despicable people who kidnap young girls in order to sell them as sex slaves. Clearly, Bryan comes out on top in the Best Dad competition.

Neeson may seem like a somewhat unorthodox choice for this type of tough guy role, but it turns out to be a brilliant bit of casting. Neeson is a great actor with considerable range, having shown off his dramatic chops in such excellent movies as Rob Roy, Schindler's List, and Kinsey. But he seems born to play this kind of grizzled action hero role, as he brings charisma and energy to what should be a flavourless action flick. It's like the coolest guy on the planet arriving at a lame, forgettable party and livening the place up. Neeson's explosive performance provides Taken with a real pulse and a sense of dramatic purpose that is absent from the pages of the script.

The rest of the cast are used more as set dressings than characters. The talented Famke Janssen plays Kimmy's Mother and Bryan's ex-wife, which means she gets to smile and scowl and look upset for about ten minutes of screen time. It's the kind of role that anyone could play, one that requires obvious emotions and a merely competent series of line-readings. As Kimmy, Maggie Grace doesn't fare much better than Janssen. The twenty-five-year-old actress makes a convincing seventeen-year-old girl, but the script requires her to do little more than scream, smile, and look scared (but not necessarily in that order). Grace makes Kimmy sweetly vulnerable and easily likable, but she is more of a plot device than anything else. Her decision to go to Paris with her best friend leads to her eventual kidnapping, which gives Bryan an excuse to show off his deadly abilities.

But while everyone else in the movie is flat and one-dimensional, Neeson steals the show and makes this thrill ride feel oddly refreshing. Luckily, director Pierre Morel (in his sophomore effort, following up the fun and silly 2004 French action flick District B13) understands that Neeson's performance is the one thing that makes Taken stand out in a crowd of similarly themed movies. Morel keeps the story moving at a brisk pace and rightfully showcases Neeson's presence whenever he is on screen. The script (by frequent collaborators Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen) is recycled action movie nonsense, but the hilarious dialogue and primitive depiction of the villains simply give the audience even more reason to focus on Neeson.

Taken is a genuinely entertaining action movie with a fascinating hero at its core. The fight and chase sequences offer a visceral impact that must be directly credited to Liam Neeson's fiery presence. As he tears through the streets of Paris with a cold-blooded glare, Bryan recalls the excitement of past action movies that relied on the power of their protagonist, rather than on the flashy camerawork and rapid-fire editing that has defined so much modern action cinema. Neeson is the only reason that Taken works as well as it does, but by unleashing his inner beast, he has provided us with the distinctly effective experience of watching a single actor light up the entire screen.