TAKEN 3 (2015) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

TAKEN 3 (2015) movie

Genre              |   Action Thriller

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   109 minutes

Released         |   8 January 2015

cast

Liam Neeson ... Bryan Mills
Forest Whitaker ... Franck Dotzler
Famke Janssen ... Lenore St. John
Maggie Grace ... Kim Mills
Dougray Scott ... Stuart St. John
​Sam Spruell ... Oleg Malankov

director

Olivier Megaton

writer

​Luc Besson ... (written by) &
Robert Mark Kamen ... (written by)
 
Luc Besson ... (characters) &
Robert Mark Kamen ... (based on characters created by)

cinematographer

​Eric Kress

music

​Nathaniel Méchaly

film editor

​Audrey Simonaud
Nicolas Trembasiewicz

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box office result

Worldwide               $326,479,141   ​​  

Australia                 $11,190,358 ​

North America        $​​​​89,256,424

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the best dialogue

Bryan Mills: I know you know a lot of people, and with a good lawyer you'll get out of jail in a few years. And then I'll come for you. I'll find you, and we both know what's gonna happen.

Franck Dotzler: [Dotzler picks up his cell phone] Dotzler.
Bryan Mills: By now, I'm sure you know who I am. You know what I'm capable of.
Franck Dotzler: I am beginning to. Let me ask you something, just so I'm clear. CIA operative? Division 6? Division 7? What?
Bryan Mills: All you have to know is I'm innocent. Give me two days, I can prove it. I can find out who did it.
Franck Dotzler: You may very well be innocent, Mr. Mills. But that's the court's job to decide, it's not mine. My job is to bring you in and let the law take its course, that's it.
Bryan Mills: Good luck.

Stuart St. John: So, what's the plan?
Bryan Mills: The plan is to make sure my daughter is safe. And the only way to do that, so it seems... is to eliminate the thing that will make her unsafe.
Stuart St. John: Malankov.
Casey: Good one, Stuart.
Stuart St. John: I'd like to help.
Casey: You're gonna help, alright. Like bait helps to catch a shark.

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TAKEN 3 (2015) MOVIE IMAGES

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TAKEN 3 (2015) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Ex-covert operative Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) and his ex-wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen), are enjoying a reconciliation when Lenore is brutally murdered. Bryan is framed for the crime and flees, with the CIA, FBI and police all in hot pursuit. For the last time, he channels his rage and particular set of skills into hunting down Lenore's real killers, taking his revenge and protecting the one important thing left in his life: his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace).

TAKEN 3 (2015) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 8 January 2015
Pop ​Movee Rating ⭐⭐

French movie maker Luc Besson, screen-writer Robert Kamen and Liam Neeson created a sub-genre of action films in 2008 with TAKEN, a hard-hitting story about a former US undercover operative whose daughter is abducted by Albanian slave traders while holidaying in Paris. TAKEN was a critical and financial success, with Neeson proving that there was an audience for a middle-aged action hero. Neeson returned for more tussles with the Albanians in 2012, but, while the TAKEN franchise grew in popularity with this second outing, the concept was already starting to wear thin. Clearly operating under the belief that you can never have too much of anything, Besson & Kamen, along with TAKEN 2 director Olivier Megaton, wheel Neeson out for, what the marketing is claiming, the end of the franchise with TAKEN 3.

TAKEN 3 is middle-of-the-road entertainment and is well below the standard set by director Pierre Morel’s original and that of Megaton’s previous entry. The film is devoid of imaginative storytelling and relies heavily on the ‘action’ to get it across the finish line. From beginning to end, Taken 3 takes its audience for granted, assuming that they will forgive poor narrative flow, disjointed plot and lapses in logic because of their familiarity with the first two films and they should already understand that Neeson’s Bryan Mills is capable of the superhuman. In this third film, the story involves Mills being dragged into a search-locate-destroy mission to protect his family and loved ones. His daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) is still around, but her problems are now much less life-threatening as she struggles balancing her college life with other things happening in her life. Taken 3 is much more about the relationship Mills has with his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) and the possibility that an end to her unhappy marriage with her current husband Stuart (Dougray Scott) will lead to a rekindling of the things that were good about the relationship they previously shared. The action takes off when Mills is set-up for murder by Russian mobsters and becomes the subject of a Los Angeles-wide police manhunt. Much of the film form this point is about the cat-and-mouse game between Mills and LA police detective Frank Dotzler (Forest Whitaker) as Neeson’s character works to uncover the truth about those who framed him. The plot is very much ‘By-the-Numbers’, as the film moves from one set piece to another. Neeson, who this time around receives much greater assistance from his cadre of undercover cohorts, is one step ahead for most of the movie while the LAPD bumble around in his wake. Once he catches up with them, those responsible for setting him up aren’t much match for him either; but there’s always one last twist in a story as unimaginative as TAKEN 3 and the writers don’t miss their chance to milk it.

TAKEN 3 is so ‘By-the-Numbers’ that there are no outstanding performances. Every single actor comes into the scene, says their line and then exits. This is remarkable given the number of talented actors who appear throughout the film. Forest Whitaker, as Dotzler, is a multi-award winning actor who has provided many memorable performances, yet, in this film, fails to register as his character spends most of the time on his mobile phone reacting to information he’s being fed by his subordinate officers. Famke Janssen is always easy to watch but the edginess to Lenore’s relationship with Mills has now completely evaporated and she has become an object of pity, her character lacking the strength to break-free from her unhappy marriage to Stuart. Maggie Grace as Kim feels shoe-horned into the story and is used more as a plot device than a real person whom Neeson’s Mills has any great affection for. The over-protective father shtick of the first film has been progressively replaced to a point where Bryan is now just plain awkward with his daughter, but the scenes between Neeson and Grace don’t work as Mills’ interest in his daughter seems predicated on reigniting his relationship with Lenore. As with the two previous entries, Neeson is the engine room of TAKEN 3 and his performance delivers as much as what it needs to keep proceedings respectable. The physicality of the role catches up with Neeson in the final part of the film, as it becomes increasingly difficult to accept that a man in his early sixties is capable of beating men half his age in brutal fist fights!

There’s no great joy to be found in the production elements of TAKEN 3. Olivier Megaton does as much as he can with the story material he’s been supplied, but it must be hard to make a film whose script is so generic. Matters aren’t helped by Danish Cinematographer Eric Kress whose over-use of the hand-held camera makes the film difficult to watch. At times, the camera is just too close to get a sense of what is unfolding. Film editors Nicolas Trembasiewicz & Audrey Simonaud do the best they can with the footage they’ve got, but many of the scenes feel as though they are missing important coverage to help fill out what is happening. If TAKEN 3 were a slow-moving character-piece it may not be as vital, but – without placing too fine-a-point upon the topic – it’s an action film!

It’s clear that TAKEN 3 is suffering from a severe bout of franchise fatigue. A weak story hampered further by predictable plotting and questionable leaps in logic should all but put an end to Liam Neeson’s tenure as franchise lead, but the film will still make money in spite of itself. It’s not unreasonable to speculate that audiences will see Luc Besson reboot the franchise with a younger version of Bryan Mills or some kind of derivative of him in the future, much the same way has been attempted with his TRANSPORTER series of movies. Fans of the series will be happy for another go-around, but the particular set of skills used to make this film aren’t as well-honed as what they once were.

TAKEN 3 (2015) USEFUL LINKS

​Taken 3 - Wikipedia
​Taken 3 (2014) - IMDb
​Taken 3 (2015) - Rotten Tomatoes

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