Review: Dated Formula Hurts 'Taken'

'Taken' (PG-13)(out of four)

Cryptic, cliched and probably about five years too late to matter, "Taken" is a thriller made precisely for anyone who thinks it's a dangerous mistake for the United States to shut down the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay.

It's a movie about a world in which every American is a target, every nation posing a clear and present threat -- and where justice only comes through extreme and terminal force. It's a saving-the-world fantasy every bit as far-fetched as "24," a sadistic dose of torture thrills every bit as distasteful as "Saw" and a celebration of vigilante justice on par with "Death Wish" or "Commando."

The fact that almost every aspect of "Taken" can be traced back through decades of genre fodder indicates just how uninspired and cluttered, the whole thing feels. This isn't just a routine kidnapping flick; it's a rehashing of various revenge thrillers and torture scenarios, complete with that creepy scene when a father or husband grabs the cell phone, telling the abductor of his wife/child/loved one: "I will find you, and then I'll kill you."

The resident tough guy this time around is named Bryan, and he's played with dogged determination by Liam Neeson, a retired "preventer" (which is to say that he's a covert operative who knows all too well about the bad forces at work in this scary world of ours).

We meet him in sunny California, after he's quit his job so he can move closer to his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) and develop a relationship with his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). Kim's step-father is a wealthy man (he buys her a horse for her birthday, while Bryan can only afford to buy her a karaoke machine), but his ability to shield young Kim from the cruelties of the world matters not when she and her friend take off for Europe -- much to Bryan's dismay.

He has clear rules for his daughter: Call him during regular intervals, stick to only the major cities and the top hotels. Provide him with a complete itinerary, complete with addresses and phone numbers. Kim and her mother laugh it all off, thinking him paranoid and more than a little pathetic.

But then it takes all of 10 minutes for Bryan's suspicions to be proved right. Kim and her friend attract the attention of a sex trafficker within seconds of touching down in France, and they are abducted from their Parisian apartment within minutes of arriving.

Bryan hears the abduction via Kim's cell phone, and after she is taken away, he threatens one of the intruders who just so happens to pick up the abandoned cell phone. Bryan grabs his gear, buys a non-stop ticket to Paris, and within seconds of landing, he's following the clues of this missing person's case -- hitting the trail as if he were a guest star on television's "Without a Trace."

"Taken" is a run-of-the-mill missing-person procedure movie, just the kind that "Law & Order" fans crave, because it shows the wicked getting their just deserts. But really, after all the versions we've already seen of this formula, do we really need another generic rehashing of the genre?

We can see each twist and turn coming from a mile away: The violent abduction scene (which "Taken" repeats twice, first as Kim is snatched and then a second time as Bryan arrives on the scene, reliving the horror), the determined rescuer, the rushed investigation that leads Bryan to the airport, the apartment, and the brothel, and then the final stand-off. "Taken" jumps so quickly through the hoops that it can't help but cut corners, and the more that Bryan proves willing to shoot, stab and electrocute to get to the bottom of the truth, the darker the enterprise becomes.

Not too long ago, formulas like this worked because they tapped into our darker thoughts about a scarier world. Evil seemed to be lurking in the shadows, and these fictions about salvation were our escape from it all. This is how we came top cheer for Jack Bauer, when we were scared and came to embrace the notion that torture was the only way to save the day.

But now "24" feels tired and tedious; it doesn't feel raw but redundant. The value of torture in saving the world has been debunked. The world isn't safe, that's for certain, but maybe it's just slightly safer than we thought it was back on Sept. 12, 2001. Today, "Taken" seems like a bleak, in-your-face reminder of a mentality that no longer seems relevant.

Personally, I'm now waiting for the thriller about a noble SEC agent who takes down evil investment bankers, gets to the bottom of those shady credit-default swaps and spends his nights saving families from foreclosures. Sex trafficking and terrorists are a big problem, yes, but what we need now is a hero who can fry some bigger fish.