At first I like this guy. He has to deal with his daughter's grossly rich step father and guard a hatefully poppy weepy singer. His ex sucks too, and his daughter is spoiled and annoying. I loose any sympathy that I had for him when we see that he sees France as some kind of dangerous third world country though. This coming from an American, a country ranked as grade 4 on the Global Peace Index (1 being safest, 7 most dangerous). Hell, Mexico is a rank above them, and Canada is three.
But he is ex CIA, and everywhere in Europe is super dangerous because they don't all own guns I guess, so while his crappy ex tells him that he's just being over protective, it feels like we're meant to be thinking "oh yeah, no, he's totally in the right". What is even more annoying is that his daughter and her loud friend are kidnapped, justifying his fear of everything outside his own country. Maybe she could use her horse to escape.
Sadly the movie doesn't end here, and we follow him on a crusade to rescue his daughter that involves, of course, lots of murdering. I had mostly checked out by this time, but the action seemed pretty good. There was a nice knife fight at the end on a boat I think, which brought 'Die Hard' to mind. It's too little too late though, the movie has just vomited in my face and is now offering me a lolly. I guess I like lollies, but everything tastes a little like puke now. And They don't chew their food.
The lead's acting was good, but the script was poor and many of the French accents were terrible (which coming from me is a bad sign, because I'm not great with accents). I had higher hopes from such a classic. I was expecting a fairly dumb but entertaining action thriller, and got a big xenophobic shit topped with sugary actiony icing. That phone scene was cool, and is worthy of note for it's nice build up of tension, but the rest of the movie was forgettable. What annoys me even more is that I saw part of a 'Goggle Box' episode (basically a show about people watching the TV of the week - it's actually better than it sounds) where they were watching this movie, and they were all loving it. Seriously? Are people that stupid? Urgh.
Taken: 11.0