Third Time's A Charm..?

The Ballymena one's personal sub-genre Hell of typecast action roles comes full circle, as he returns to the scenery chewing Denzel-Washington-wannabe (but with cooler lines) role that reinvigorated his career as a modern Hollywood hard man back in 2008. After the critical panning of Taken 2, Liam Neeson said he was done with the series. If only he'd stuck to his guns.

Taken 3 sees retired CIA man Bryan Mills (Neeson) seemingly enjoying a bit of peace for once, trying to put those “particular” set of skills behind him and instead taking up new hobbies such as cooking, jogging, and the occasional round of golf. However, he soon finds his blood-pressure boiling again after his ex-wife (Famke Jansen) is found murdered in his Los Angeles apartment and the finger of blame is firmly pointed at him. On the run from half of the LAPD, headed up by Detective Franck Dotzler (Forest Whitaker), he sets out to find out who framed him and exact his revenge the only way he knows how.

An early joke between Mills and his daughter (Maggie Smith) pokes fun at the predictability of the Taken films. Stuffed panda in hand, he comments that for once in his life he wants to do something unpredictable - an odd epiphany considering the poor girl could probably do with some stability in her life after being abducted twice in one lifetime.

Perhaps he imagined Taken 3 as breath of fresh air, famously refusing to come back unless there was a change-up in narrative. Producer Luc Besson and director Olivier Megaton have kept their word by removing the abduction scenario from the equation. In its place there's now a totally mind-numbing melodrama surrounding the dysfunction of Mills' family which ultimately has no bearing at all on the overall arc of the Taken series.

Thus we see a change in pace for the series, switching the formula from gritty revenge thriller into a glossy chase film with added family values. Liam's rampage across half of California is edited to within an inch of its life, leaving in his wake a trail of wounded cops, dead Russian mobsters, burnt out cars and incoherent action sequences that are impossible to follow, unimpressive to watch, and deliberately whittled down in order to earn that highly profitable 12A BBFC certificate.

An escape scene through a smelly water pipe isn't the only thing that causes this film to utterly reek of 1993's much more intriguing Harrison Ford vehicle The Fugitive. Homage it may be, but it doesn't stop the rest of the film's plot from being entirely expected. Of course it all comes down to those trademark phone riffs in order to establish this as part of the Taken brand. However, now his usual gobby spiels raise more laughs than they do tension.

The rest of the cast are given very little to do, so all that remains is for them to stand by with slack-jawed awe as Neeson runs amuck around them. Even the addition of Forest Whitaker proves to be null and void, as he spends most of his screen time pondering the importance of bagels, running a chess piece through his fingers or playing cat's cradle with an elastic band. If it's quirky character traits you're after then look no further, just don't expect it to make a lick of sense.

What made the first Taken film so much fun was that it was always intended to be a trashy, exploitation romp with crummy dialogue and high octane fight scenes. An abysmal sequel and a few copycat films down the line, to even compare this third instalment to a bargain basement action flick would be an insult to most of Poundland's DVD section. Stick in an ageing wrestler or an action star from yesteryear any day of the week and you'd immediately get much more bang, crash and wallop for your buck. Liam, we both know it's time to put those skills to rest. I'm afraid you're just getting too old for this shit.

Leigh Forgie

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