Taken 3
Genre: Thriller
Director: Olivier Megaton
Cast: Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Dougray Scott
By now, you’d imagine, word would have gotten out among Albanian human traffickers and other odd assortments of international bad guys that it never pays to mess with Bryan Mills’ family. The former black ops special agent ‘with a very particular set of skills’ (played to badass perfection by Liam Neeson in Taken and Taken 2 ) always delivers on his promise to ‘look for, find and kill’ them.
But the memo doesn’t appear to have reached a somewhat wimpy Russian mobster Oleg Malankov (played by Sam Spruell) and his band of tattooed baddies. This time, Mills and his family don’t even have to leave Los Angeles for foreign shores before trouble comes calling. Under the terms of engagement that Neeson set for the producers for the third (and final) film in the franchise, no one gets ‘taken’ in Taken 3 . But a far more fatal fate befalls his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Jenssen), and Mills finds himself framed in the murder.
In walks rubber band-twirling, chess-piece-clutching detective Franck Dotzler. Neeson is forced on the run for much of the film, trying to figure out who has set him up — and simultaneously protect his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) from being ‘taken.’
The thread of mystery, as it unravels, leads him back to his ‘family.’
Age clearly tells on Neeson’s character this time around. But even on tired, old legs, he kicks ass in regal fashion, with the same steely grit and gravelly voice that saw the franchise through virtually single-handedly.
The same can’t be said for the rest of the film, though.
The lyrical cinematography by Eric Kress accentuates and amplifies the action scenes, and the opening credit sequence, in particular, with the camera panning over a lit-up Los Angeles, is bewitchingly beautiful.
Venky Vembu
