‘Taken 3’
D
The slogan for “Taken 3” is “It ends here.” I’m crossing my fingers that it’s a promise.
In “Taken 3,” Liam Neeson returns as retired CIA agent Bryan Mills. Of all the retired CIA agents in the world, the bad guys just can’t seem to leave this one particular retired CIA agent alone.
First it’s his daughter, Kim. Then it’s his ex-wife, Lenore. And this time it’s his ex-wife again, except she’s actually killed in the first five minutes of the film.
Not only is Lenore murdered, but the murderers have the audacity and originality to make it look as though Bryan was the one who killed her. The nerve of stereotypical and cliché for-hire Russian thugs, these days.
If you think Bryan is going to take this sitting down, you haven’t been watching the first two equally-predictable “Taken” films.
Bryan all too easily drops the shambles of the ordinary life he’s built and starts the hunt for his ex-wife’s killer, all while avoiding the Los Angeles police and trying to stay in contact with his daughter — because that’s what good fathers and smart CIA operatives do when trying to hunt down and kill someone.
There’s a nice plot twist at the end that will totally throw you for a loop and remind you that screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen are action thriller masterminds who are most definitely not trying to hide an overused plot and tired acting with pretty explosions, quick cuts and a seemingly never-ending musical score.
The true message of “Taken 3,” or really the “Taken” trilogy in general, is that apparently when you’re a badass ex-CIA operative and your daughter is kidnapped or your ex-wife is murdered, you get to track down the perpetrators yourself and claim your own justice.
And as long as you succeed in killing the people who hurt your family, the cops will let you go, no questions asked, and it’s like all those people you killed in that massive car accident on an interstate didn’t even exist. I’m sure they didn’t have a family they would have liked to get back to.
“Taken 3” is the perfect example of how a poorly thought out script can still pull in audiences and the big bucks. Because even if you don’t like the story, you can rely on Liam Neeson to carry you through just like the producers of “Taken” have been doing for the past seven years.
Lexia Banks
