‘Taken’: The World’s Oldest Profession is Father
by Leo GrinHe is a man with a gun. He is a killer, a slayer. Patient and gentle as he is, he is a slayer. Self-effacing, self-forgetting, still he is a killer. . . All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. — D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature (1923)
Every once in awhile an action film comes along that revives. That proves that — no matter how strong the political correctness of an age, no matter how pale and pathetic its notions of masculinity, no matter how much Ritalin is force-fed to little boys, no matter how many toy guns, xylophone mallets, and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots get banned from stores and playgrounds — there are certain aspects of the male soul that are inviolate, and certain primal yearnings that are evergreen. Taken (2008) is one of those films, and its release last week on DVD and Blu-ray should be heralded by lovers of all things red-blooded, hairy-chested, and morally sound.
When this movie appeared in the doldrums of Hollywood’s off-season, it was expected to die a quick death in a marketplace filled with audiences either too sophisticated or too sophomoric to respond. Modern theatergoers, the theory goes, increasingly want their “heroes” to be either brooding Abercrombie & Fitch nymphets like Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, feckless stumblebums like Ben Stiller and Paul Blart: Mall Cop’s Kevin James, quirky class cut-ups like Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp, or silly video-game tough guys like Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. When an actor does put some honest testosterone in his performance — Daniel Craig in Munich (2005), Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino (2008) — it’s inevitably to make a much larger point about violence breeding only more violence, all of it equally reprehensible, a product of way too many pesky males wreaking havoc in primitive bursts of knuckle-dragging temper.
We are led to believe that if only The View and Oprah could become required therapy for guys, if only there were enough copies of How to Take the Grrrr Out of Anger to go around, if only enough Neanderthals were herded into sensitivity/diversity/anger management/sexual harassment/conflict resolution training, then gee, what a wonderful world it would be. In recent years, only Sly Stallone’s lumbering but effective Rambo (2008) (tagline: “Heroes never die. . .they just reload”) has dared to flip a fully unapologetic middle finger at Hollywood’s human potential movement, offering up a wholesome, rejuvenating hero of implacable moral certitude bathed in the blood of his hated enemies.
Director Pierre Morel and writer/producer Luc Besson’s Taken follows in that film’s laudable footsteps, but significantly ups the ante by adding intelligent layers of real-world characterization to its steel-tipped judgments. The overarching villain in Taken is not a cat-stroking, monocled megalomaniac, nor a motley army of interchangeable third-world guerrillas, but an attitude. A NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) policy practiced by an entire assembly-line of well-imagined kidnappers, pimps, concierges, businessmen, cops, and Sydney Greenstreet sheiks — American, French, Albanian, Arab — all of whom are perfectly content to participate in and profit from the great evil of sex slavery as long as it’s not their daughters being fed into the meat grinder.
Social conservatives have long highlighted the very real plight of women and children across the globe being forced into prostitution (see Donna Hughes, Claudia Barlow and Big Hollywood’s Kathryn Lopez, all at National Review Online). But it’s the rare Hollywood action film that eschews absurdly convoluted plots of world domination or mass destruction in favor of a setup utterly chilling in its innate on-the-ground plausibility. In this age of Natalee Holloway-style sensationalism, what parents haven’t worried about their daughter heading off on a trip? Using this potent, universal fear as a linchpin with which to hold together the stunts, fights, and pandemonium was a stroke of genius, and elevates the audience’s emotional investment far above that of any other action film in recent memory.
As the film’s star, Liam Neeson, stalks through Taken’s miserable underworld of murderous degenerates and silky-smooth predator elites, he is continually faced with the gangland version of the same bureaucratic nightmares that so often terrorize our real workaday lives. “I sit behind a desk now,” a French policeman “friend” tells him by way of rejecting his pleas for help, “I take my orders from someone who sits behind a bigger desk. . . .my salary is X, my expenses are Y. As long as my family is provided for, I do not care where the difference comes from.” When at long last Neeson’s Bryan Mills, captured and defenseless, confronts the man capable of freeing his daughter with a nod of his immaculately coiffed head, the exchange is one that, but for the life-and-death stakes, could have occurred at any DMV or post office:
ST-CLAIR: “Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”
MILLS: “The last girl — I’m her father.”
ST-CLAIR: “Oh my. . . .”
MILLS: “Give her to me.”
ST-CLAIR: “I wish I could — honestly. See, I’m a father myself. I have two sons, and a daughter. But let me tell you something, Mr. whoever-you-are. This is a business. This is a very unique business with a very unique clientele.”
MILLS: “I’ll pay!”
ST-CLAIR: “This business you have no refunds, no returns, no discounts, no buybacks. All sales are final. Besides, discretion is about the only rule we have.” [turning to his henchmen] “Kill him. Quietly — I have guests.”
Translation: you didn’t fill out the right form/pay the proper postage/return the item by the deadline, so your daughter is going to spend the rest of her life as a burqa-wearing blow-up doll. I’m oh-so-sorry — next customer, please. . . .
Set against these smiling, Armani-clad, ever-so-reasonable slave traders is a man with “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,” a man of such singular purpose and moral clarity that we believe him when he promises to “tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to” to find his daughter. A lifetime of living far from the sterilized bubble-universes of political correctness and cradle-to-grave pampering has taught him that there is no negotiating with such scum, no possible penance or rehabilitation, no shrugging at or sympathizing with the worldview they represent. They are the enemy, the nemesis of everything he holds dear as a Judeo-Christian, as an American, and as a father. Against that evil, blood is the only disinfectant.
One of the chief joys of the picture is watching how each defeated villain squeals like a stuck pig and falls over himself to appeal to the hero’s mercy — the very sense of decency they never displayed while engaged in their own unfettered cruelties. “We can resolve this,” one pleads, as if trying to calm down an irate customer returning a defective blender. “I know how you feel. We should talk. We could work this out.” Each time, our hero sees these empty entreaties for what they are: the soulless cries of scorpions unexpectedly denied the use of their sting.
The frontier justice meted out is swift, brutal, and thoroughly satisfying — which means, of course, that the resulting carnage was decried by horrified movie critics as “lowest-common-denominator trash,” a “risible male-re-empowerment fantasy,” an “unsavory mix of sentimentality and high-octane seediness,” and a “post-Sept. 11 throwback to the most primitive movie melodramas.” My, my — how nice to see liberals bitching about a film getting an inappropriate PG-13 rating for a change! Meanwhile, those males around the country who remain proudly unreconstructed — and also, based on the audience I saw the film with, the women who love them — cheered as each doom-laden verdict was rendered:
“I believe you — but it won’t save you.” FFFFZZZZZZZZZ.
“You could have made this much less painful if you had been more concerned about my daughter and less concerned with your goddamned desk.” WHAM!
“It wasn’t personal!” “It was all personal to me.” BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!
By the end, the hero’s determination reaches such a fever pitch that he doesn’t even spare a moment for the usual Hollywood banter with the arch-villain cowering behind his terrified human shield: “We can nego–” BLAM! A thunderous exclamation applied with diamond-sharp moral certainty, without a single iota of doubt or remorse. As it should be.
(from left: Jon Gries, Leland Orser, and David Warshofsky)
If there ends up being a sequel to this film, I hope they do it right. Leave behind the kidnapping meme and take on another of the many moral outrages to be found in the progressive multikulti worldview. Bring back Neeson’s three CIA buddies — portrayed by character actors Leland Orser (the real-life husband of Jeanne Tripplehorn, the lucky dog), Jon Gries, and David Warshofsky — and this time give them some real things to do and good lines to say. And for Pete’s sake, don’t have them betray each other, and don’t kill them off for cheap thrills — let them be heroes. Above all, keep the emotional core of the film real and honest, and do your best to drive the heterophobes and misandrists nuts.
Every action movie is filled with its share of stupid implausibilities, but there is nothing stupid about a father’s love for his daughter, and nothing implausible about the sex-trafficking nightmare portrayed in Taken. The legalize-prostitution crowd has gotten a lot of mileage out of putting a reasonable, libertarian face on the whole sordid business, reminding us that, after all, it’s “the world’s oldest profession.” Taken answers back with a growl: “No — the world’s oldest profession is father.” And fathers, for those who need reminding, are men. Males. X-Y.
At the end of the day, when all of the sensitivity/diversity/anger management/sexual harassment/conflict resolution training falls away, the male of the species is a killer, the keeper of a bloody heroic ideal that winds through our history and through our myths, back through Snorri Sturluson and Luo Guanzhong, Shakespeare and Malory, Virgil and Homer, and ultimately the Old Testament and beyond. Countless women and children owe their lives and happiness to the men who tread grim paths of death in their defense. Just as many owe their misery to the failure of some men to honor that age-old crimson burden.
The self-loathing ninnies in Hollywood can spend millions of dollars to make Greedo shoot first, or to airbrush shotguns out of scenes. But such pale attempts at enforcing nanny-state ethics amount to little more than spitting into a merciless wind, the harbinger of a hard, isolate, stoic truth that has never yet melted.
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356 Comments
If "The View" or "Oprah" did become required therapy for guys, I would become violent. . . very violent. . . and green. . . very green. You wouldn't like me.
Good analysis. And thanks for mentioning Snorri.
Good review Leo. Have you seen this movie Andrew?
Excellent post. I agree wholeheartedly. I purchased Taken on Blue Ray due to the many good things I heard about the film and was not disappointed. Great revenge flick. And I agree with you regarding his team, I was so glad they didn't make one a traitor, I'm pretty sure that would have knocked this movie down a few notches. I really expected them to.
Name a father, any father, who wouldn't tear a city apart with his bare hands to find his child? Or wouldn't cut the bad guys apart with a chainsaw to get them to release her?
I sure would!
I haven't seen "Taken", but that's what I liked about Denzel Washingtons "Man on Fire". He had fatherly feelings for Dakota Fanning, and was killing everyone who stood in his way when rescuing her.
Right on Leo!
I especially like your point on the legalize prostitution crowds argument. It's about time I heard someone say anything about that!
I did. I enjoyed it. I wasn't amazed by it or anything, but it was fun.
Don't worry… As a woman I would become violent watching that drivel… all it does is brainwash women to fit into a specific politically correct feminist mold instead of allowing women to think for themselves… :/
It was one of the best movies of the year for me. Why are these movies the exception rather than the rule in Hollywood?
I would also become green if I was forced to watch the cult of victimhood that is Oprah and the View. If I wanted to hang out with hens I'd own a chicken farm.
Good post. This movie is so awesome. How come manly men are so sexy? Sighhhhhhhh
I had wanted to see that movie for months before it came out and I am glad I did… I really enjoyed Liam Nelson's character… It's not very often we see real men (well maybe not real as in every man can go on a rampage in France… but I am pretty sure that any real man would wish that they could) portrayed in the movies…. I tire of characetures of men… but then I am the type of woman that like men to be men and not some offbeat version that they are supposed to be today… :/
It seems unusual to give two thumbs up to a movie review, but two thumbs up! I just rented it and it was fantastic for all the above reasons. Making Liam Neeson the action hero instead of someone like Vin Diesel really made the movie.
One disagreement though. Regarding the line “I believe you — but it won’t save you.” FFFFZZZZZZZZZ. – you say "…he doesn’t even spare a moment for the usual Hollywood banter …"
I would have loved for Neeson to say "Good luck".
Maybe I've seen too many Schwarzenegger films.
With some of those critics' complaint about the movie, how can any maintain credibility? Although I'm sure there will be some exceptions, I wonder how many gave praise to movies filled with worse violence or morals. (Quinten Tarentino springs to mind)
I hate to ascribe over simplicity to anyone, but sometimes it's hard to shake the impression that these people really don't like black & white. Like the columnist who thought the LOTR trilogy was Bush administration propaganda, they're so obsessed with the moral high ground they've failed to realize they overshot the peak years ago.
I see them occasionally when I visit my doctor or have my car serviced and I honestly don't know how people can watch those shows. A couple minutes is enough to drive me crazy. I all seems like such a total waste of time to me.
In a related topic, when I was in college, we had a bunch of hockey players across the hall from us in our dorm (freshman year). Apparently, they'd burned down their own place, so the school put them up with us. Those guys were absolutely addicted to soaps. Every one of them sat there entransed for hours. I couldn't figure that out either.
Nice Hulk reference Mr. Banner. LOL!
I was fighting a bad chest cold last week and decided to pamper myself with a couple of recent releases. One was "Step-Brothers" which was so mind-bendingly awful that it actually made me angry. [You'd think I would know better about Will Ferrell movies by this time.] However I followed this up with "Taken" which was the most satisfying motion picture I have seen in years. Neeson's character is the complete realist both in instructing his daughter what do do during the kidnapping ("They will take you") and in dealing with anyone remotely connected with the crime. I particularly liked the bit where he breaks the news to his ex-wife and her rich husband and then matter-of-factly briefs the guy on business interests he didn't even know that he had. A great film, a great dad and a great cure for the common cold.
Funny. I was home sick with the few for a couple of days in college and managed to get temporarily hooked on General Hospital.
Fortunately, I got well on both fronts.
Just sent this to my Marine son who LOVED Taken; as did I.
I'm glad to see this review. I loved this movie. This just reinforces and articulates may of the reasons it was so good for me. I assumed I only liked it because I have daughters myself and therefore could identify with the hero but after reading this I can see it goes way beyond that.
Is it weird or what that we have to rely on the French to make a satisfying and masculine action movie?
I was dead-set against watching Taken, fearing it would be nihilistic and anti-hero, but my husband convinced me, and I ended up having the greatest time! This is the first movie in years during which I actually cheered. One or two implausible moments, but who cares. The bad guys got it, but good, and it was intensely satisfying.
The movie didn't shy away from the fact that Neeson's character was an absent and neglectful father, but I liked the somewhat unsympathetic portrayal of the ex-wife/mother as smug, unforgiving, and undercutting instead of saintly.
(Only nitpick — and it's a microscopic nit — is that no director should let Maggie Grace run on screen, ever. She looked like a drunken gazelle.)
I know a lot of people like those shows, but I just couldn't see the attraction. Glad you got better!
Saw Taken on DVD Monday night with a few friends. My favorite scene was Liam standing in the room full of armed men, and upon realizing one of them is the man he spoke to on his daughter's cell phone, reveals himself. I thought the ease with which he tracks these guys down was a bit over the top, but I did enjoy the film.
As for The View and Oprah, I can't understand a word any of them are saying. All I hear is, "Buk buk buk, BUGAWK!" It seems my wrench turning, grease under the fingernails man brain is incapable of processing their speech.
I rented and watched "Taken"a couple of days ago. While I have no problem with the protaganist killing any and all involved with the kidnapping, selling and abusing of his daughter (and the other girls/daughters as well), one of my biggest complaints concerning the film is when he shoots the wife of the French official. She was not involved save for being married to the official. It is this one act that I think the "hero" loses his moral clarity. For me, it would have been more appropriate had he shot the official. Shooting the wife just seemed out of character with the rest of his actions.
My two biggest complaints about the movie are:
How did he get out of the country? He left a path of destruction and the local officials know it's him, he obviously couldn't have used his own passport or the private plane he originally used to enter the country.
The movie was too short. I understand that he only had 96 hours but he found the bad guys too quickly and too easily. Should have been drawn out just a little bit.
Other than that, it was an entertaining movie and, obviously from my comment above, over too quickly.
What made the film so effective was Nesson's motivations were completely understandable to any father. "My daughter was taken. I will kill anyone who gets in the way of me rescuing her. Period."
Any father worth his salt would do the same.
Not sure about turning green, lavender maybe, or mauve. But not green, it'd clash with the furniture.
Rented the DVD the other night. Loved it. Can't wait for Gran Torino. Our society has become so Oprah-ized and fluffy and wussy and feminized so much that this straight-forward a movie is nearly shocking. I can watch a Tarantino movie and the gore and violence is so comic-book and it's really no big deal. But this hits a nerve because it doesn't do violence for violence sake, but for a worthy cause. I need to watch it now and then to offset the testosterone that is sucked out daily through our wussy media and culture.
Woman stands on chair and shouts, "YEAH!"
Awesome article! We missed the movie in the theatre, and plan on purchasing it to add to the DVD collection. We knew right away we wanted to see this movie. Our two daughters knew right away they wanted to see it.
As a female, I find the View and Oprah an insult to my intelligence, and viewing either would be an insult to my husband. Oprah, to me, is also like the female alien monster in "Alien", and any other killer or brain sucking monster ever seen in a sci-fi movie. Dittos to those on the View. The only time the View is worth watching is when Ann Coulter goes on the show and proves how ignorant these women are on not only politics, but real issues facing families and our nation.
There was one thing that amazed me to be honest, it was filmed properly. By that I mean it wasn't a thousand split second cuts to try to make the action seem "faster" or to make you feel the "confusion of combat." Which is pure hokum, been there, done that, and if I had that little grasp on what was happening I wouldn't be here today to be tying this. That was one of my big gripes with the Bourne movies (aside from the pathetic whining that happened every 3 minutes) and more recently when I tried (3 times) to watch Quantum of Solace. I sent it back to Netflix still half-unwatched because the jerky camera angles and quick cuts made it impossible to figure out something as simple as who the hell was whom in a fight. Which was a shame, because I loved Casino Royale and really like Daniel Craig as Bond. Oh well.
Movies like this should be encouraged to be made, in that same sort of style. The hand to hand combat was fast and brutal without them using feeble editing slight of hand to "get you into the action." The story was enough to get you into the action, and the simplicity of it lent it much more realism than those movies where it seems like the editor was a ferret on meth. At least in my opinion of course.
Ok, I've got to ask. This furniture of which you speak. . . is it made of white whale skin?
"Taken" covers ground that was probed thirty years ago in Paul Schrader's "Hardcore." In that film George C. Scott is an upright Methodist businessman whose teenage daughter is lured (possibly voluntarily) into the Los Angeles porno scene. Unlike Brian Mills, Scott's character has absolutely no "set of skills" that will enable him to get her back. He sets out anyway aided by a sleazy private eye (Peter Boyle) and a wary prostitute (Season Hubley.) "Hardcore" should have been a better film but it was fatally compromised by Schrader's lack of sympathy for the father (whose naivete is contrasted unfavorably to the worldliness of the LA characters) and a smug moral equivalence that has Scott ultimately becoming almost as brutish as those he is pursuing. In a sense "Taken" is what "Hardcore" should have been but wasn't.
I saw this movie the opening weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved the no apologies attitude of the Neeson character. Maybe this movie is the first step in the re-masculazation of men, without apologies. We should be able to defend our families by any means, and not have to extend a teddy bear to the villains first to understand why they attack us, without apologies. We should be able to be men again, without apologies.
This movie will definitely make its way into my DVD collection soon, without apologies.
I was recovering from a "work related injury" a couple years back and got addicted to COPS while lying on my back for a couple of weeks. It got so bad for about a year I'd catch myself singing "Bad boys, bad boys what ya gonna do…" every time I was driving anywhere. Thankfully I never landed on the soaps or Oprah, I probably would have had to go into de-sensitivity reprogramming or something.
You make a great point. These days heroes need to be addicted to heroin or part time criminals to qualify for praise from some critics. They refuse to believe that an honest to goodness good guy is out there and capable of doing what Neeson's character did in the name of love for his child.
Your Tarantino reference is perfect, as long as the violence and lack of moral content is accompanied by a groovy soundtrack, it's cool….Heaven forbid a dad with a "unique set of skills" and moral clarity opens a few jugulars….
Shows like THE VIEW and OPRAH seem to have become required therapy for women too, for reasons I don't understand. They've only succeeded in dumbing down our society. I've not seen TAKEN yet, but it's always refreshing to see a movie where male characters aren't obsessed with manicures and pedicures.
"Man on Fire" was a pretty good movie too, I still cringe a little bit everytime I hear "Oye Como Va" though because of it.
"Taken" and "Man of Fire" were really similiar. "Taken" was good, but "Man of Fire" was awesome! I love movies where the good guys do what it takes to make things right.
I loved this film. What a PC world we have inherited when punishing evil is a refreshing change. There is little I would not do to save a child of mine, and real people men and women get agitated by evil done to one they love. The emasculated male is the rule in film and entertainment venues, and we are the worse for it. We all are invited daily to join the victimhood club and get in line for a government bailout, grant or program to make it right. Baloney!
Hollywood formerly made movies about good and evil. They may have been simplistic at times, but there was an ethos that allowed for clear designation of good and bad. Now we have pre-arranged false sympathy for brutal killer for making "bad decisions". What if we just recognized that maybe, possibly, evil does exist and it is OK to say so out loud. What a concept – kidnapping and child prostitution are really evil. A clear position, stated in a well made film.
What was great was that he didn't give the thugs a chance to talk their way out of it. None of the, okay, I've put you down and walk away, waiting for the usual bad guy to get up and popping him in the back. You're down and stay down! Great stuff!!!
Now you've gone too far sir! I like Cops.
Actually, I can explain that. When Cops first came on the air, it gave us (the public) our first look into the world of policing. It was downright fascinating. Since that time, the stuff found on the Discovery Channel has far eclipsed the show. But for it's time, it was really fascinating.
One of my favorite shows on Discovery these days is Dirty Jobs. Not only does the host have a great personality, but I find it really interesting to see what people do for a living.
As a hockey player, I can assure you that was an anomoly……we rarely burn down our own places of residence…..
At the end of this month I'll be taking my new FNP9 out for tactical shooting with my Krav Maga class. If anybody from The View or the LA Times read that sentence, they'd think I was some kind of testosterone addicted, knuckle dragging, nut.
I'm not a cop or a soldier (which, as Dr Johnson rightly said, I regret). I'm just a guy who lives in a potentially dangerous world (thanks not only to gang bangers but Mayor Viaragosa and Police Chief Bratton) and wants to be able to take care of himself and his loved ones.
The Left NEVER understands that. The Left's idea of compassion ends long before the concept of self-defense can ever enter their narrow picture.
So when relief aid is sent to starving nations, but is then stolen by the nation's own thug governments, the Left is spineless. They cared enough to send the food. They just don't care enough to make sure, at the barrel of a gun if need be, that the food actually gets to the starving mouths.
Heh! I think Cops touches that part of the brain that makes us look at car accidents as we pass. Are you able to look at drunk trailer park inhabitants the same way?
Unfortunately, most fathers, as much as they might like to be, would be incapable of the same.
I was at the dealership getting my car serviced and The View was on. I sat out in the hall rather than be subjected to that drivel. God I hate that show!
Well in college I was a drunken trailer park inhabitant…hey apartments were expensive and all.
I never had the cops show up at my trailer though, but there was many a night we'd sit on the deck and watch them kick down some door on the next "street." Good times, good times.
No word on the soaps though? LOL!
Most of these guys were Canadians — maybe that was the difference?
Good times indeed. I had a friend who once rented out a house he owned near such a trailer park. When the tennants stopped paying rent, he went to reclaim his house. The whole place was six inches deep in potting soil — they were growing pot in almost every room of his house. He was not amused. The cops were though.
Ah, the vomit cam. I hate that. It's designed to hide poor choreography.
You're right about the realism factor. Most of my favorite action movies focus heavily on realism.
Great flick! Saw it in the theater and my wife and I watched again on DVD, killer movie. Real men doing manly things, go figure?
CRUSH 'EM.
Fathers Kick A$$. Always have. Always will. If a man doesn't / won't defend his own, he is no father, regardless of how many bear his genes, worse, he is no man, he is a wretched dog.
Deadbeat dads are not Dads and don't deserve to be called Dads. A Dad is there.
Maybe Hollywood churns out crap anti-dad stuff because they have no role models and created an incestuous self-propgating pool of rebellious brats who resent their own bastardizing non-fathers.
Yet there is hope…as Real Fathers will never succumb
Love the idea of a sequel with Mills perhaps coming to the aid of, and working with his buddies. Wrote about the film myself here: http://deanaanderson.blogspot.com/2009/03/about-f...
"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. Isaiah 11:1-4
agree on all of your points- however, 'Quantum' , to us anyway, keeps getting better with repeated viewings, and Blu-Ray helped immeasurably. Marc Forster brought an art-house conceit to the series that worked quite well as a one-off sequel. However, the broader point of poorly shot action is spot on. It's far easier to quick cut and splice rather than rehearse, train, choreograph and lock down the camera. See 'Lawrence of Arabia' or 'From Russia With Love' for classic examples of that…
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Malachi 4:5-6
"It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, TO TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS BACK TO THE CHILDREN, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Luke 1:17
What I loved most about this movie, aside from Liam Neeson going all Charles Bronson on everyone, was the comparison between Liam Neeson's character and the uber-rich, but ultimately useless step-father. The step-dad buys his daughter a pony, and allows her to do whatever she wants without any sort of guidelines or fatherly direction, and through it all Liam Neeson is made out to be this loser, with no money, who is too old-fashioned, rigid, and out of touch. New age sensitive step-dad versus strong father figure. Of course, tragedy strikes and the "cool" step-dad is rendered worthless and "loser" Liam takes care of business, without fanfare…like most good fathers do everyday.
Did you know that Mike Rowe, the host of Dirty Jobs, used to be an opera singer in Baltimore?
Those who turn the hearts of children from their fathers and the hearts of fathers from their children are in for a smiting. That includes those who are pro-death/abortion…. Regardless of your rank, position or circumstance, president, plebe, pauper or king.
Heads UP! SMITE! Coming your way.
I'll pay to see that. Retrieved! Recompensed! and Eliminated.
REPENT.
God is angry with the wicked everyday.
He's coming with a smiting.
I used to love COPS, but I got tired of watching them haul away half drunk morons in their wife-beaters. Apparently there is an army of those guys in every city….
On a different note, ever see CLOPS on MADTV? Nothing is funnier than watching Paddington the bear get arrested for exposing himself at a train station….
yes, that must be it…..they were Canadians……
Do you really expect an honest answer?
One of the many things I loved about "Taken" is that there are no excuses for the nationalities of the bad guys.
I just watched Taken (twice) over the weekend and loved it. It occurs to me that this movie answers the ongoing debate about torture. That any parent , not just a father (remember the bedroom scene when "mom" pleads for Liam to get their daughter back) will do anything to rescue their child, including "torture". This movie strips away all the moral preening about how we have to be "better than them" . When innocent lives are on the line , deep down, we all want someone to do what has to be done.
Not all fathers may have the "certain set of skills" that Mills has. But any real father certainly has the same requisite will. And learning how to aim and squeeze takes about 3 minutes. My two daughters will never have to ask themselves 'is Daddy coming?' whenever they run into hardship.
http://shermansmarch.blogspot.com
I know what you mean, in the past it seemed like the actors actually took the time to learn fight choreography in a way that made sense from a fighting standpoint, whereas now it seems that they plan the choreography around what would look cool to your average uninformed audience member. Looking cool is one thing, being flat out ridiculous is something else, at least if it's a movie that's supposed to be in any way, shape or form realistic.
I'll try to rewatch Quantum of Solace when it's on HBO or whatever, but I really needed that Netflix slot back since the new season of "24" was coming out; and honestly if I haven't gotten through a movie, despite trying, after a week or so, it's just not happening at that point in time. I really want to like the movie, since as I said I think he makes a good Bond and it picks up right after Casino Royale, which is another refreshing change to the franchise, but for the time being it's just not working for me yet.
Thanks! And no thanks to that doctor played by Rick Springfield!
…Or the usual Hollywood presentation as bumbling fools
You're probably right, but it's not a bad thing to get a jolt of moral clarity in such a grey world.
Amen to that
Vomit cam is the best way to describe it too. I've gotten motion sickness watching some movies portraying things I've actually done where I had no problem at all handling what they were showing for real. Which is completely illogical, but just how it is. So whenever a director tries to justify quick cuts and shaky camera work as "realistic" I just have to shake my head a bit. Okay, I shake it a lot…
Same here on realism with violence, although I don't mind cartoon-y violence so long as that's the whole vibe of the movie to begin with. To me what works in "Shoot Em Up" doesn't work if you're doing something that's supposed to be serious.
Hey I like Cops too, but singing it every time behind the wheel of a vehicle, that gets annoying even to yourself after a while. Let alone what the passengers threatened to do to me…
But they don't mind being black-and-white when the villain is the US government or a big corporation!
Seriously, watch almost any police procedural type show and as soon as they introduce someone who works for a corporation, the government, or looks to be in any way conservative and it's far better than even money you just saw the guy who committed the crime. "Law & Order" has become famous for it, while "Life" has become semi-famous for flipping that model on its head when the big bad firearms company was the innocent party.
When in doubt: Blame Canada!
(this is where everyone starts humming that song)
(sarcasm)
No no no no no. You're behind the post-modern cultural curve. Kidnapping and child prostitution are only evil when white guys (who may or may not work for a major corporation) do it.
(/sarcasm)
I second your notion.
I read that. Amazing huh?
I checked out the show's website a while back, and he had this interview where he said, "if you see me in a bar, come up to me and tell me 'Mike, I'm a dirty (boy/girl), will you buy me a drink." And he said he would buy whoever said that a drink! LOL! Great sense of humor.
A man's got to know his limitations. . . and those of his passengers.
How dare you say such horrible things about the monster in "Alien"? Comparing it to Oprah! What did that alien ever do to you?
Amen to your comments about The View. That show embarrasses me as a woman.
I liked the team too, and think that a sequel featuring Liam and the Guys would be awesome. Again as long as they don't make one of them the evil mastermind, which is so typical of films these days that it's almost a formula.
Indeed, the alien in "Alien" is far less destructive than Oprah is, I mean the alien at least had the common decency to skip the political endorsements phase of last year…
I'm to the point when I see that story line coming up, to pop the DVD out and use it as a shingle on my mower shed. It's too predictable anymore and too boring. How many million movies can you keep making with the villians being corps or military or the enforcement departments of the government? There are too many other movies out there that don't toe that line and I'll be happy to watch them. But Taken was great to see that didn't ebb back into the predictable soul-searching operative who found out he actually loves puppies more than killing deserving people.
He had it coming I swear!
Good call on the connect with Hardcore. I liked Hardcore, but you are right that the director didn't have much sympathy for the character. A lot of this, I suspect, was because of the religion angle. Scott's character was the owner of a furniture company in western Michigan, an area known for religious conservatism. I suppose the director was trying to show the hypocrisy for Scott's character (religious, but willing to kill to get his daughter back). Whatever. The end result was that the bad guy died and Scott got his daughter back. Not as satisfying as Taken, but less of an actioner.
In Quantum, I couldn't get over the hybrids that our hero was using. I liked Casino Royale, but the green theme of Quantum was too much.
I'd rather see those moronic guests on Oprah's show discuss their feelings with the alien. How about John and Elizabeth Edwards? Oprah can be there, too. Now that would be appointment television.
ROFLMAO! Now that would be good television!
"Buy the new James Bond edition Segway!"
When God created man I am pretty sure he intended them to be manly. What we get from holly wood and such is not what God intended. I would rather be single than marries to a metrosexual male. No thank you.__
He makes the show. Anyone that is willing to put themselves through all that and still has a great sense of humor is a rare find indeed.
It would be cool to hang at a bar with that dude, the stories….
LOL!!!!!!!!!!
I meant married.
I haven't seen CLOPS, but I did see TROOPERS on the web — with the Storm Troopers doing the whole COPS thing. Hilarious! Called to a domestic disturbance at Uncle Owen's farm indeed!
Shoot, I was going to post the link — but they stripped the audio. Too bad, it's really funny.
If you really analyze it, the real reason liberals would hate "Taken" and the stellar "Man on Fire" is they prove one thing: enhanced interrogation works. Maybe some scumbag doesn't know the whole crimnal/terror plot, but long before he makes up information (as the libs say enhanced interrogation leads to), he'll give up his contact, who will give up his contact, and you go further up the chain. See also: Khalid Sheik Mohammad, Ramzi Ramzi Binalshibh, etc.
Agreed. Did you notice, by the way, that our posts aren't disappearing? Sounds like they fixed the problem! Woo hoo!
I would have liked to see a bit more if Neeson at his side job, that part of the movie was completley rushed through.
LOTR was not meant to be a post 9-11 parable, but for those who remember those attacks and how we felt after them, there is no other way to read the post 9-11 world into it.
I felt the same way, on a smaller scale, about Signs. The film perfectly encompassed the "OMG, the world is under attack, and I'm stuck in my house" fear, combining it with the satisfaction of imagining what it would be like to crack the cause of that fear across the head with a baseball bat.
I interviewed the cast of the movie and director M. Night Shyamalan, and told them that, and they didn't disagree. I was stunned to find out the start of the shoot in Pennsylvania was September 12, 2001.
I used to post on Town Hall and they still have all kinds of problems. Glad they worked out the glitches here though, I like it much better here.
And the villain. The guy was way too metrosexual to be a credible match for Bond. I've tried watching Quantum again, but it just doesn't work for me.
Oh man, that sounds like a repo my husband looked at last year. At first we we're wondering why is there dirt all over the place? and then it hits you and you think Oooooh…
AMAZING review on an amazing movie. I've seen it twice and let my teenage sons watch it knowing they'll get the right message from a movie for once.
Ah yes, but the metrosexual trend is a problem in a lot of movies these days with not only the villains, but the heroes, the heroes' friends and everyone they encounter except for perhaps one old gruff caveman-y mentor type looking like a bunch of pouty, angsty male models. It's not only getting old but it's pushing the bounds of credulity.
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