Taken 3

Released:  January 9th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  20^th Century Fox

Starring:  Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Dougray Scott

Directed by:  Olivier Megaton

Written by:  Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen

Personal Bias Alert:  seen none of the Taken series, not into Besson-style action movies

3 of 10

            Sometimes it seems like all series end up here.  Gasping, on its last legs, trying desperately to be what everyone loved, it holds up its pitiful offerings with pleading eyes, asking only that you buy your ticket for one more round.  It’s easy to call out a movie as a cash grab, but when everything’s turning up green (a sequel that made more than its predecessor, the returning players getting a bigger payday while the film gets less money for production) then it’s hard to argue against what’s staring you in the face, namely that Taken 3 is a shoddily made bore that knows people will buy a ticket no matter what they put around Neeson and his gun.

            In a sad truth, Liam Neeson is the best thing about Taken 3.  Even without seeing the rest of the series, it’s not hard to imagine that he’s the best thing about the entire enterprise.  Co-star Maggie Grace, who plays Neeson’s daughter in the films, agrees.  “I really think having a substantial actor at the center of the movies is a huge part of the success,” she said in a piece for the Tribune News Service, and it does help.  He’s able to fill in backstory or establish a relationship with a glance, and despite Neeson’s age and slight pudge, he’s still a convincing action star.  When he gets framed for a murder and must hunt down the people responsible, Grace’s Kim trusts her father completely, and so does the audience.

            That makes for an extreme disconnect when, for no real reason, the film toys with killing off Neeson’s Bryan Mills.  There’s several instances where a big action sequence plays out only to end in a way that seems impossible for Mills to have made it out alive.  The moment is held, as if anyone in the audience actually thinks his death is possible, only to have him pop out of some hidey-hole and continue on his less-than-merry way.  It’s only one of the many narrative problems that this film has, but it’s such a complete failure of self-knowledge, specifically that everyone in the theater coughed up money to see Neeson beating people up, that it’s clearly the most egregious.

            So let’s talk about Neeson kicking bad guy butt.  Or, in this case, Neeson punching and shooting in such a jumbled mess of shots that you can’t tell how he’s doing until he walks away from the fray leaving a trail of bodies dead or unconscious behind him.  Yes, even the action sequences are a complete failure in this film:  shaky, inscrutable, and completely devoid of tension.  It’s a classic case of muddling the action to get the PG-13 rating (hey, another cash grab decision!), but it doesn’t jive with anything the film is trying to do.  This is a nasty, violent film, with lots of punches to the face and bullet holes laid bare.  And yet, there’s zero blood, even when it’s impossible for there not to be.  Its absence is distracting and at time a bit confusing, doing nothing to bring clarity to the already incomprehensible action sequences.

            The one thing that is comprehensible, in fact, painfully so, is the plot.  Apparently, writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen learned about foreshadowing but missed the class on subtlety.  Every plot point in the last twenty minutes of the film is thrown in your face early on, to the point that it’s pretty easy to figure out who did what.  If, like me, you figure out the bad guy quickly, then the rest of the film’s plot about investigating who committed the murder is a total bore.  It’s actually embarrassing that the allegedly smart Mills, his secret op buddies, and the cops investigating him take so long to figure out the mystery.

            When I see a sequel like this, with a boringly dumb plot, bad action, and competent but uninspired acting, I can practically see the word ‘sellout’ emblazoned across the screen.  I don’t mean this as a condemnation of the people involved (everyone makes bad choices) but instead as a condemnation of this particular film.  The best thing an audience can do in a situation like this, and this is especially important for those who liked the original, is to stay at home and watch Taken.

Other Notes:

Ø  Mills is very concerned about protecting his daughter, unless there’s an opportunity for a sweet-looking action sequence.  Then he screws his daughter and goes for the explosions.

Ø  The ending had to happen, because otherwise it couldn’t be called Taken 3.

Ø  Mmm, bagel plot point.

Ø  The best decision anyone made for this film was not calling it Tak3n.

Non-Stop (2014)

6.5 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  likes well thought out thrillers, haven’t kept up with the “Liam Neeson is an action star” trend

            We had to wait until the end of February for Liam Neeson’s latest action thriller.  This one boasts an impressive supporting cast, and after seeing it, I’m at a loss to explain how they were assembled.  Was there a really impressive early draft of the script?  Did everyone decide to cash in?  Does everyone just really likes Neeson?  The finished product certainly doesn’t deserve them.  “Non-Stop” is a forgettable affair with a few decent twists, but it falls too often into familiar territory to be truly thrilling.

            Neeson stars as Bill Marks, an air marshal on a hijacked plane trying to suss out who the actual hijacker is.  His only communication with the hijacker is though text messages, which tell him that a person will be killed every twenty minutes until money is transferred into a bank account.  The situation quickly escalates, but to reveal any more would do the film a disservice.  Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Nate Parker, and Corey Stoll co-star as passengers, while Michelle Dockery and Lupita Nyong’o play flight attendants.

            Marks is, of course, a troubled soul, and Neeson plays him with a weathered determination we’ve seen him do before.  Julianne Moore’s character has her own secrets, but she and Michelle Dockery’s flight attendant prove to be Marks’s most loyal supporters.  Universally, the actors do fine with their roles.  No one stands out, neither good nor bad.  They appear as required, and most of them manage to pull off even the more obvious of the plot machinations.

            The plane plays a large role in the film and is used very effectively.  It’s a small space, even if it is one of the relatively roomy jets used for transatlantic flights.  Obviously no one can leave, but the cabin’s layout also makes it easy for Marks to keep tabs on everyone.  It wears on him, as he stands staring at his mass of suspects, that he can’t identify which person is the hijacker.  The passengers stare back also, frightened and slowly losing faith in their protector.  It’s a classic potboiler, but the plane doesn’t give them room to release the tension.

            Where “Non-Stop” falters is in its script.  It’s flat out predictable, following a course we’ve all seen before.  If the twists were better, or the characters more interesting, then it could have elevated itself above the faults of its genre.  They manage a few clever things, like explaining how in the world someone could kill a person on a plane and not get caught, but it also goes for some cheap thrills, making me unable to consider it smart.  The characters are simply bland.  You get who they are from the first time they are introduced, and none of them really change.  Without decent twists or characters, a thriller falls flat.

            “Non-Stop” ended up reminding me greatly of “Flightplan.”  Remember “Flightplan?”  Neither do I.

Other Notes:

Ø    This movie has several really funny moments.  My favorite is what Marks offers to the passengers to make them calm down.

Ø    I like that Marks goes after the age-appropriate woman.

Ø    Does putting tape over the smoke detector really work?