During my time at Tennessee Tech, the campus ministry I was a member of went to the movies. When A Stranger Calls was playing, as was a kidnapping movie. I do not recall the name of that film, because we did not go see it. Over the vociferous objections of the entire group, we watched the former film. Why? Because our campus minister said he can't watch kidnapping movies.
He said as soon as I had children, I would understand.
Of the many things that he said, the majority of them were profound, wise, and/or knowledgeable. But when he missed the mark, he missed it by a mile.
And in a side note, we did at least get to see Camilla Belle with a wet shirt, so all was not lost. And while her character may have been jail bait, she was, in fact, 20 at the time, so there was no need to feel creepy about it.
Admit it, any college guy would go to jail for this.
Taken is in my top ten movie list, and has only gotten more firmly planted since the births of my two girls. In a related note, I think my Die Hard collection would stop at III if I wasn't a father.
To some extent, Taken is a recounting of the same story any given responsible father will face a kerjillion times starting around...oh...three months after the birth of a daughter.
Act I: Father tells Daughter not to do something stupid.
Act II: Daughter does it anyway.
Act III: Father bails Daughter out.
This real-life formula is combined with another potent story archetype that every boy who does not get beaten into a effeminate weakling with the cudgel known as "civilization" holds dear to his heart:
Act I: Once upon a time...blah, blah, blah.
Act II: Danger looms.
Act III: Danger gets a face-full of righteous anger in the shape of something pointy.
Lian Neeson's character, Bryan Mills, is the most single-minded character I've seen. Once his daughter gets grabbed, he has one goal: find her. He's not out to rid the world of sex traffickers, not out to rid the world of corrupt officials, not out to save the all the girls, not even really out for vengeance.
He's single-minded to the extent that you find yourself almost disgusted at times.
***Spoiler alert***
First, when his daughter and friend are being kidnapped, Mills only threatens the kidnapper to get his own daughter released, not her friend.
Next, he tracks his daughter's trail to a prostitution ring that drug girls up and cram them into a trailer on a construction site for whoever happens to feel the need. Being consumed with a simple goal of finding his daughter, he has no qualms about leaving the drugged-out girls behind, saving only one who he believes has information about his daughters whereabouts.
After a little more digging, Mills ends up in the traffickers' apartment building where he engages in some decidedly un-white-hat-ish combat, backshooting and bushwhacking guys in a totally ruthless manner.
After taking one captive, Mills spends a few minutes torturing him until he coughs up what he knows. Then Mills kills the guy in cold blood, mostly because that's what he told the guy he would do if they didn't let his daughter go.
Finally, when he finds a trail of corruption leading to an old friend, Mills quite coldly shoots his (ex-)friend's completely innocent wife in the arm to get the last bit of information he needs to find his girl.
Yeah. He goes there.
He finally kills his way to the man who purchased his daughter. When the man, holding her in front of him at knife point, offers to negotiate, Mills shoots him between the eyes.
I just killed your entire security team. Why should I negotiate?
***End spoilers***
Movie body counts, a website I never knew but always hoped existed, puts the body count at 35, but they note that they only count stabs, gunshots, and clear broken necks. I'd put the number closer to 40-45.
Anybody with a little knowledge of human anatomy and physiology know that getting hit in the throat with enough force to render one unconscious would also kill the person unless they received prompt medical intervention. A little more medical knowledge would also let a person know that getting bludgeoned hard enough to render one unconscious is also hard enough to likely cause death by intercranial hemorrhage, again, assuming that the victim did not make it to the ER within an hour. Given that everybody who might call 911 is also dead, this is doubtful.
Plus, any idiot knows that stunned/unconscious people do not swim well, so pitching an uncoordinated guy into a river counts as a kill.
Sure, dirty cops get outed, a human trafficking ring is decimated and a lot of girls are implied to be freed, but at the end of the day, Mills doesn't care about that. Taken 2* does not see him investigating who knew about what, or going out to finish off the cartel or become a grief counselor for his daughter's fellow captives. If the guy at the start had let his daughter go and only taken her friend, Mills would have just sat on his side of the pond and not slaughtered his way through Paris.
He's not a hero. He's a daddy.
He just happens to be a highly trained daddy.
*A "meh" film, by the way. Entertaining, but without the heart of the original.
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