Taken
Mr. X: Mr. John Wick?
J.W.: … … … … …
Mr. X: Known as Baba Yaga?
J.W.: … … … … …
Mr. X: Mr. Wick, my client is prepared to pay 35 million dollars for the elimination of this person.
J.W.: … … … …
Mr. X: Okay, 50 million dollars.
J.W.: … … … … …
Mr. X: Um, Mr. Wick… my client is a very influential man. He heard that you once managed to leave this world of, uh, providing services… and he’s prepared to do everything so you can “retire” again.
J.W.: … … … … …
Mr. X: Mr. Wick, I think this is a unique opportunity to…
J.W.: … name…
Mr. X: Yes, of course sir, I’m Joca from…
J.W.: Target’s name…
Joca: Ah, yes, of course, sorry, hehe… it’s a retired CIA agent, Bryan Mills…
J.W.: LOL! NOPE! NO, THANKS! (connection terminated)
Criminals apparently aren’t aware that in this world there are people (admittedly, a very small number, but still…) who shouldn’t be crossed. Especially if those people are retired. And those people aren’t retired just because they got old, you know… often they retired for private reasons… and often also because both the governments of the most powerful countries and criminal underworlds tremble before them. And such people should be left to live a peaceful life.
Of course, some spoiled criminal idiot appears whose daddy gave him everything, so he got it in his head that he could break into the house of a man grieving his wife’s death, steal his favorite car and shoot the dog left to him after his wife. We all know that man eventually got his car back… and the Russian criminal underworld in that part of the US was reduced to two Russian cuisine restaurants and one stand selling fur hats and matryoshkas (we’ll deal with this gentleman in the future).
Bryan Mills is a man who, because of work in government service, lost a lot on the family front. It cost him a divorce too. Because of that, he decided to retire and try to at least build, as much as possible, a close relationship with his lovely 17-year-old daughter Kim, and normalize his relationship with his ex-wife Lenore and her new husband (who’s actually a heavy bourgeois).
Bryan is a meticulous man, he likes everything simple, tidy, organized, straight lines everywhere… like every typical Virgo in the horoscope. He occasionally has a beer/barbecue with the old crew from government service, who now work as security for celebrities (and Bryan recently jumped into one job to help them, and on that occasion saved a young singer from certain death and gained her affection). Also, in his eyes Kim is still a little girl and it’s hard for him to reconcile with the fact that she’s growing up. So for her birthday he bought a small karaoke machine, which is still cool if you ask me (“Jesus…” – note from subconscious), but it can hardly compare to a HORSE that your stepfather gives you as a gift. Similarly, he likes everything under control and to know what’s happening by the minute, which makes him seem paranoid too (professional deformation).
After some extended wrangling with his daughter and ex-wife, he agrees (since the daughter is still a minor) to give consent for Kim and her friend Amanda to spend some time in Paris in the penthouse of Amanda’s cousins (although it turns out it’s a tour of Europe following the U2 band), but on condition that she calls him regularly.
Since (of course) she didn’t call immediately after landing at the airport, Bryan soon calls his daughter to lecture her. While trying to justify to her father why she wasn’t completely honest and didn’t call on time, Kim sees someone breaking into the apartment and kidnapping Amanda, with the obvious intention to kidnap her too… and Bryan hears all of this. At that moment, Bryan’s voice changes, and he tells his daughter that those people will soon kidnap her. As calmly as he can, he explains where to hide and that when the kidnappers grab her, in those ten seconds or so, she should scream out what details she notices about the kidnappers. Bryan then hears the sounds of a struggle, and then silence on the phone, because someone found it.
“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you’re looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money… but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that will be the end of it – I will not look for you, I will not pursue you… but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you… and I will kill you.”
These are the words Bryan speaks to the kidnapper over the phone. The kidnapper responds with “Good luck” and hangs up.
Every average parent would at this moment call the police, intelligence services, the embassy in France, former buddies from the Foreign Legion and old contacts to help them save their daughter. Well, Bryan managed to record the conversation with the kidnapper himself over the phone, and with the help of old buddies learns that his daughter is in the hands of Albanian mobsters who deal in kidnapping and selling young girls (sex trafficking). And that he has a total of 96 hours to find his daughter before her trail is lost… forever. And so Bryan decides to save his daughter himself.
You see, when I said Bryan worked in government service, I didn’t mean he worked issuing IDs or in municipal police. Bryan is a former CIA operative and former “Green Beret.” He said he dealt with “prevention” (preventer), but he was actually a specialist in paramilitary operations, where people with a “specific set of skills” are engaged… in other words, he was a nightmare for his enemies. And you kidnap such a person’s daughter. And so Bryan Mills will transform from a nightmare into Death itself (Grim Reaper style) to save his daughter.
Whether Bryan will save his daughter in time (or lose her forever), whether the Albanian mafia will have to close its branch in Paris, as well as whether the Eiffel Tower will remain intact after the visit of a man who deals with “prevention,” you’ll find out if you watch “Taken” (translated here as “96 Hours”).
“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you’re looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money… but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that will be the end of it – I will not look for you, I will not pursue you… but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you… and I will kill you.”
I’d like to repeat this paragraph, these sentences that Bryan Mills spoke to the kidnapper. Namely, I don’t deal with crime, but I know negotiation skills well, and I’m pretty sure that if some person, whose loved one you’ve taken, tells you in a calm and cold voice (so you feel like Death’s own messenger is addressing you, how creepy it sounds) that they will find and kill you (and you talked to them on the phone for more than 30 seconds)… … … it’s really not the smartest thing to confidently tell them “Good luck.” The correct answer in such a situation would be to say “Yes, yes, sorry sir, you sound very convincing. No worries, we’re returning your daughter business class right now, no need for anger. Here, we’ll buy muffins and baguettes and a Paris Saint-Germain jersey for your daughter, and for you too… you seem like a man of, um, diplomatic taste, here’s a nice cognac in a bottle shaped like the Eiffel Tower for you, everyone loves that here, hehe… um hello… hello, can you hear me? Cheers… oops, Gazmend, looks like we got into big trouble because of this girl…”
The central figure of the film “Taken” is, of course, Bryan Mills, i.e., the legendary Liam “Qui-Gon” Neeson. Liam has 40 years of (quite successful) film career behind him and numerous unforgettable roles. He fit excellently into this role, and created a fine (older) action hero, who definitely became immortalized for all time with the famous phone conversation (which I’ve already mentioned twice). The other actors also achieved quite solid roles, however, I wasn’t sure whether to list them, because either they had quite short screen time… or quite quickly ended up beaten/dead. X) But why not, let’s mention Famke Janssen (Jean Grey in “X-Men”), Maggie Grace (Shannon from “Lost”… though I never got past the first season), Holly Valance (various unimportant random roles), Katie Cassidy (Laurel from the excellent series “Arrow”) and Rade Šerbedžija (who achieved quite solid episodic roles in many famous films).
The main trump card of the film is, of course, the action itself. Liam Neeson, although he was well into his fifties when he filmed “Taken,” still showed that he can be, even as an older man, a solid action star. They smartly used his height (at over 190 cm, the man still seems like a large and intimidating figure), as well as practical (and applicable) elements of martial arts, like aikido, judo and jujitsu (interesting fact is that there’s a martial art style Nagasu-do that combines these skills). The fight scenes are short, fast, dynamic, with Bryan’s focus on quickly incapacitating enemies, in the spirit of someone who was once a member of special forces. Either fist/elbow/forearm to the throat/nose/back of the head or bullet to the head.
Though it’s not all just about the action and Bryan’s cold-bloodedness. Hardened warrior that he is, he’s primarily a father desperately rushing to find his daughter, and we’ll see a couple of scenes, when no one sees him, when it seems he’s on the edge of breaking from despair and exhaustion, though he tries to stay clear-headed.
The director’s visual approach and way of filming “Taken,” in combination with the (quite simple) plot written by Luc Besson, led to the film maintaining a considerable dose of realism without excessive special effects, and in accordance with the film’s plot, all of Paris seems grayer and gloomier than it is… including the main hero himself.
Although it’s obvious the film isn’t a masterpiece, the persona of Bryan Mills himself is more than interesting, and deserves to enter the pantheon of action heroes and antiheroes like James Bond, Jason Bourne, John Wick (and recently, most likely, Tyler Rake).
“Taken” got two sequels (2012 and 2014), and even a series about Bryan Mills’ adventures from his younger days (obviously without Liam Neeson here), though they never managed to reach the success and dynamics of the original (as the film “John Wick” succeeded in doing), which is a great shame, because a lot could have been done with this hero.
In any case, if you’re “tight” on time, then definitely watch the first part, which is in itself a complete whole, and enjoy this tense action thriller. 🙂
And you, dear reader, what do you think, who would win in a duel Bryan Mills VS John Wick? 🙂
Trailer
IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic
Format: Film
Duration: 90 minutes
