Taken for a Ride
Friday night I met up at midtown with ex-coworker Chris and his girlfriend to go see the Liam Neeson flick, Taken. It was Man on Fire “light”, the diet version of that darker, more extreme film.
Getting to the movie was a bit extreme in its own right. We went to the Regal on 42nd street. Had I known this fully in advance, I could have planned it better if only because I had to go to midtown after work. In fact, I went to midtown, after work, and then back home, as we had decided beforehand (or so I’d thought) to go see the film at a local theater. It was only when I got home and made contact with Chris that I found out the movie location had changed… to midtown. I picked up my jacket and hat which I had just taken off, grabbed my wallet and keys which I had just deposited on the kitchen counter, turned off the lights I had just turned on, and hoofed it back to into the city.
The subways are funny things. They are governed by laws beyond the ken of mortal men. That night, they favored me. Within a few minutes of my arrival at the Clinton-Washington station, the G dutifully appeared. As the G pulled into Hoyt-Schermerhorn, the A also pulled in across the platform. All of this good fortune conspired to get me up to Time Square in a record time, early, so early I was stuck waiting for almost ten minutes in the cold for Chris and company to arrive. Still, better early than late.
I missed the first trailer due to a cash register malfunction at the concession stand (gotta have my popcorn). The rest of the trailers were terrible and I could not figure out what made whoever makes decisions on trailers think that the movies they chose had a common audience with us, the mostly full theater, waiting to see Taken. The trailers were so forgettable that I’ve forgotten them, except for their uniform awfulness.
When Taken finally started, it started off really slowly. The setup was so mechanical I could hear the gears turning beneath the soundtrack. All you need to know is this: Neeson is a badass in retirement. His daughter is kidnapped. Neeson comes out of retirement. Ass is kicked. Take the first two sentences and throw them up as an intertitle. That’s it. Really. I didn’t need a half hour of sappy family drama thrown piled onto my action movie just to tell me that. Do we genuinely not know that Neeson is going to go save his daughter? There’s no suspense in this revelation. Save the ex-wife, new husband, absentee daddy rich man poor man blah blah blah for somebody else. I don’t want it. I don’t need it.
With that junk out of the way, the film gets to what it’s really about: Liam Neeson racing around Paris beating the crap out of everybody, mostly Albanians, but with a few assorted Frenchmen thrown in for good measure.
I like the direction modern fight choreography has gone. Starting with the Bourne movies, through the new James Bond stuff, new Batmans, etc., is a style built out of real world techniques that produces a whirlwind of brutal, physical, intense melee. Neeson works it as well as anyone. Watching him repeatedly hammer one unfortunate in the kidneys in the back of a taxicab is a singular, if a bit perverted, pleasure.
And that’s just the beginning. Once the film picks up pace it really drives forward. Sure, Neeson sometimes appears with something or other than will get you thinking, “when did he get that? how did he do that?” but better they gloss over some plot holes than slow things down to explain everything. Do you really want to know? Do you really care? No, you don’t.
That was the film – some good violence wrapped inside a marzipan shell of sappiness. As I said, it’s a sort of diet Man on Fire. A good time was had by all, except all the Albanians and a sprinkling of no-good Frenchmen.
After the film, we made use of Chris’s girlfriend’s access to a black car to get back to Brooklyn. We got off in Boerum Hill and went to Joya. Chris raves about the place endlessly and now I can see why: great atmosphere, great food, great prices. I tried the mussaman curry with beef which I usually get at Thai 101. The flavor was a touch different but just as tasty. Given that both spots have just about the same prices, Joya wins on the atmosphere. Of course, Thai 101 is in my wheelhouse while Joya is a trek away.
That was my Friday: two trips to midtown and an action flick powered by popcorn and curry. What more could I ask for?
What do you think?