You saw him in Star Wars, you saw him in Batman Begins, you saw him in, er, The Chronic(what?)les of Narnia, and you probably heard his voice in a nature documentary or two, but y'aint never seen Liam like this. By "this" I mean pissed off, lethal, and also "in the movie, Taken", which is actually the subject of this post. If you've already seen it, then you can skip ahead to the part where I talk about Doctor Who, which you haven't seen. If not, let me tell you a little bit about the movie. I'll keep spoilers to a minimum.
Taken is a movie made by Europeans about Americans in Europe. This is to me a very important fact. It is an opportunity to see how the rest of the world, and by that I mean the rest of the rich world, thinks of us on this side of the pond. Just how do we measure up?
As a father, good 'ol Liam is on the angsty side. He doesn't get to see his daughter that much. But when she goes to Europe unescorted and is kidnapped right off the plane he goes, and I'm pretty sure I'm using the medical term here, bananas.
As far as killers go, Liam Neeson is nothing but efficient. Completely unarmed, Liam is able to dispatch an entire cadre of banditos and them some, but this is not the over the top ingenuity of Jason Bourne. Liam's moves are simple, even repetitive, and alarmingly effective.
Really, I find it hard to be insulted by this portrayal of an American by a European. That's usually how I feel, even if maybe I should be insulted.
In the season finale of Doctor Who series 3, we get another taste of the European vibe for Americans. The "president" of the U.S. is a complete blowhard who gets assassinated by aliens. When the Doctor finally fixes things (Spoiler Alert!) by reversing time for a whole year, everything is back to normal. Oh, wait no, the president is still lying on the floor, dead.
The Doctor will save the entire planet, but not even a characature of George W. Bush? Frankly, I don't blame him, but does Europe even realize what they have to thank this man for? The weak dollar has turned to east coast into an ideal vacation spot for anyone with a Euro in their wallet, and at least we here in America won't steal their daughters.
Will Europeans ever give us the respect we deserve? With this movie, it appears that maybe we will. This movie presents an alternative to the current paradigm, which is, if Doctor Who is any indication, something along the lines of "Americans are disposable." With Taken, the paradigm seems to have shifted to something with a little more street cred: Americans don't know who you are, but they will find you and kill you. Americans won't stop there. We'll kill your crime lords, your police, we'll shoot your wife in the arm, we'll kick you in the balls and break your neck. And we have a black president.
Europe is sending a message to America too, namely "Stay the hell out". In Europe, they take your spoiled stupid daughter and get her high and slap her and do lewd things. That's about as dark as they can get with a PG-13 rating, but rest assured you do not want to send your daughter unless you have got yourself some ball kickin' skills.
Thank you Liam Neeson, for negotiating a new relationship between my people and yours. I will certainly remember this movie next time a friendly Francais offers to share a cab with me. I will definitely kick him right in the nuts if he tries anything funny.
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