Review: Frech cinema
director – and now
Hollywood writer and producer – Luc Besson has been a consistent master of the stylized action genre. With clockwork-like precision he has written and produced some of the most famous action series of the last decade, be it the Transporter, Taxi or now the Taken series.
Liam Neeson, who was 56 in 2008 when the original Taken came out, was the last guy one would have thought to have turned an action star, a la Steven Seagal.
Yet the film surprised everyone with the raw energy of Neeson and its immense emotional pull.
If there is any saving grace in Taken 2, which is mostly more of the same elements in the first, it is once again Neeson — at 60 he packs in a punch even Rocky Balboa aka Sylvester Stallone would supremely envy.
On a trip to Istanbul, former CIA spy and now security consultant Bryan Mills (Neeson) and his wife and daughter on a holiday with him, are hunted by the relatives of the men he has killed earlier. He and his wife are captured.
With time running out, his skills are put to the test as he tries to do three things at the same time — free himself, find his wife and keep his daughter from getting captured. This time he has an ally in his daughter who, wizened by her earlier experiences, does exactly as her father tells her to.
There was a raw neatness and edginess to the first part. Besson and his new director Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3) try to maintain the same elements here.
Though they succeed to a large extent, the surprise is no longer there.
Taken 2 thus walks a now familiar path. Without much room to either build characters or leave room for sub-plots, it is no surprise that the film goes downhill. Yet, it has enough elements to delight those who loved the first and new ones who inadvertently walk into this one. (IANS)