District B13

The first collaboration by the writer and director of Taken is a French-language action film that doesn't take itself too seriously. It's quite short at only 80 minutes and really has very little story to speak of, but the more violent aspects have a nice style to them that makes it a fun, quick watch. We've seen parkour get infused into various movies more and more like Casino Royale, but this is the only one I know that stars the founder of the discipline. David Belle is a rebellious figure inside a poor district of France that has been abandoned and walled off by the government and taken over by crime lords. After a cop is informed that a bomb has been stolen and accidentally activated inside the district, he and Belle team up to deactivate it and also rescue his sister.

What follows is a string of fight sequences and free running chases that are still fresh and entertaining five years after release, and do well enough to make the movie worth watching for action fans despite the meager plot and lack of big special effects. Everything, or most everything is done without wires or computer assistance, and it proves that you don't need explosions to be exciting. Luc Besson made a couple really good films before he apparently decided it was easy enough just to script a bunch of basic action flicks, but at least this one delivers on its promise of creative entertainment better than say, The Transporter. I enjoyed it.

Taken

I have to admit, my opinion of Besson's ability to make a script for and put together a kick ass movie was slipping a bit, but Taken showed me he still has some tricks up his sleeve. It's a bit light on plot and intelligence or subtlety to the dialogue, but it's the perfect vehicle for one of the most enjoyable straight-up revenge movies I've seen. You pretty much know everything you need to from the commercials that either focus on the pivotal scene where Liam Neeson's daughter get captured or show a montage of him beating the shit out of people. Put those together, and that's what the movie is. Morel's directorial debut was with District B13, another Besson script, and he really seems to know how to do action in the Bourne/new Bond style that I like so much, although the camera is thankfully a little less spastic when stuff's happening. The part is much more physically demanding than artistically challenging for Neeson, although he brings his usual great self to it and handles everything better than you'd expect from a 56 year old.

There's really not too much to say about Taken without just gushing about how cool Liam is. He's not just a good fighter, he has all sorts of skills that he uses creatively to look for his daughter. He gathers the clues he needs a bit conveniently and quickly, but it works to drive the very tight pacing forward as he tears a path of destruction to find what he came for. And when the action does get going, it's really quite good. To be honest, I wasn't completely feeling the movie for the first hour. There were some cool moments, but the biggest scene was a car chase through dirt that I didn't much care for, and it wasn't totally clicking. But as the film goes on and Neeson's daughter gets closer to being lost forever, he gets visibly more determined and starts going further to take care of things, and his desperation shows as the brutality of his actions builds. It's effective both from a story perspective and the fact that it makes the movie backloaded, with standout moments occuring more and more frequently as it approaches the end. There aren't any big surprises to watch out for or complicated repercussions, it's just an unrelenting, very direct film that puts everything on the table and says, "Here's what we did, enjoy it if you want to." And I did enjoy it quite a lot.