For those that are familiar with the process of how a movie gets the studio “greenlight” you are probably aware of what a “treatment” is. For those that don’t know, it’s a brief summary of the film being proposed. Generally, it’s a little longer and more detailed than an outline but not as detailed and long as a script. They can be anywhere from a brief few paragraphs to several pages long. In the case of Taken, the treatment could easily have been written on the back of a matchbook. That’s not always a bad thing, sometimes simpler is better. In Taken‘s case, I’m just not really sure.
The entire film is basically summarized in the trailer where Liam Neeson’s character is having a phone conversation with the kidnappers of his daughter, played by Lost‘s Maggie Grace. To paraphrase, he tells them that he has no ransom money, but he a specific “set of skills” that make him a nightmare for people like them and that he will hunt them down and kill them. That’s it. That’s the movie. That’s the exposition and that is exactly what happens in the film.
There are no twists and turns, no intricate espionage subplots, and no substantial character development beyond that. There’s no attempt made by the film to make you believe or think that anything else is going on beyond the formula, which is:
1. Father’s daughter is kidnapped
2. Father threatens the kidnappers
3. Father finds a kidnapper/bad guy
4. Father kills kidnapper/bad guy
5. Return to step 3 and repeat until all kidnappers are dead.
Yes, granted, sometimes he kills more than one person, but that’s about it. There’s very little “fun” in the journey either. First, all of the action sequences are the quick cut, nuts camera style of editing. When done well, like in the Bourne films or in Quantum of Solace, it’s very effective. In Taken, it’s not done very well. The sequences are somewhat annoying, hard to follow, and leaves what really is happening just out of reach of the normal human ability to process information.
The camera work is so crazy that it had my wife leaving the theater to the restrooms in a bout of motion sickness, a reaction she hasn’t had to a film since the beach invasion sequence in Saving Private Ryan with the high shutter speed action. Granted, she is a wuss and has trouble with too much on screen motion.
The plot itself is treated with very little love. The only thing that could even half-way considered even a “sub-plot” was set up in the first 10 minutes and pretty much brought home in the last 5 with no mention or relevance in between.
What this all adds up to is simply an incredibly average action yarn. There’s very little compelling about it beyond a solid performance of the type we’re used to seeing from Liam Neeson.
Can’t say I could really recommend Taken for any reason beyond the interesting choice of casting Liam Neeson as a bad-ass action hero, but even then that’s hardly enough to hold together such a paper-thin film.
