Sight and Sound
"Morel directs much like his mentor Besson -- that's to say, very slickly, with an emphasis on glossy action sequences." 11/01/2008 p.74Box Office
"TAKEN is very much its own film, bolstered by director Morel's explosive, adrenaline-driven approach to staging action and a cleverly-constructed script..." 01/28/2009 Los Angeles Times
"Neeson throws himself into this role, appearing in nearly every scene and making good use of a purposeful scowl that combines fury and disgust in equal measure." 01/30/2009 Washington Post
"A satisfying thriller as grimly professional as its efficient hero, TAKEN pairs the ruthless hand-to-hand combat of the Bourne series with the potent child-in-peril plotline of a Lifetime original movie." 01/30/2009 Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]his is an absolute hoot whose visceral, no-holds-barred fight and torture scenes...are brutal enough to make even Jack Bauer flinch." 02/20/2009 Empire
3 stars out of 5 -- "Ex-cinematographer Pierre Morel brings much of the punishing brutality he injected into DISTRICT 13..." 03/01/2009 Entertainment Weekly
"One of the biggest -- and most surprising -- hits of the year, TAKEN gooses a tired premise and turns it into a tense exercise..." -- Grade: A- 05/15/2009 ReelViews 7 of 10
If there are any 24 fans who have wondered what the TV series might be like if Liam Neeson replaced Kiefer Sutherland, Taken provides an opportunity to have that question answered. Neeson's Bryan Mills uses nearly all the Jack Bauer tactics, including torture, bone-crunching, and bloodletting. He gets involved in car chases, shootouts, and brings a gun to a knife fight. Like the Energizer Bunny, he takes a licking but keeps on ticking. When it comes to action, Taken gets the job done. The film is never boring. It is, however, completely preposterous...It's a little surprising that this movie, with its frank and graphic depictions of torture and unflinching images of death, missed an R. It boggles the mind that the MPAA somehow deemed this appropriate for teenagers but found Slumdog Millionaire too harsh. I feel reasonably sure that five or ten years ago, this cut of Taken would have been rated R...For Liam Neeson, this is one of those "paycheck" roles. He's not required to do much more than look grim and participate in some carefully choreographed action sequences. Maggie Grace, still best known for her doomed role in Lost, has the thankless task of playing the victim. There's no single villain, so a bunch of unknowns play various nefarious individuals who bear some degree of responsibility for what has happened to Kim. Unlike in many action films of this sort, however, there's no individual at the top of the totem pole, so Bryan's goal is to eliminate everyone with any degree of involvement. There's no Payback scenario...Taken has the kind of story that, if fleshed out properly in a novel, might be a page-turner. The perfunctory, contrived manner in which director Pierre Morel handles the material, however, ensures that the movie is never given the opportunity to rise above the level of a cheap potboiler...The well-crafted trailer promises more atmosphere and intelligence than the movie delivers. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 7 of 10
If CIA agents in general were as skilled as Bryan Mills in particular, Osama bin Laden would have been an American prisoner since late September 2001. "Taken" shows Mills as a one-man rescue squad, a master of every skill, a laser-eyed, sharpshooting, pursuit-driving, pocket-picking, impersonating, knife-fighting, torturing, karate-fighting killing machine who can cleverly turn over a petrol tank with one pass in his car and strategically ignite it with another...It's always a puzzle to review a movie like this. On the one hand, it's preposterous. But who expects a "Bourne"-type city-wrecking operative to be plausible? On the other hand, it's very well-made. Liam Neeson brings the character a hard-edged, mercilessly focused anger, and director Pierre Morel hurtles through action sequences at a breathless velocity..."Taken" reopens a question I've had. A lot of movies involve secret clubs or covens of rich white men who meet for the purposes of despoiling innocent women in despicable perversity. The men are usually dressed in elegant formalwear, smoke cigars and have champagne poured for them by discreet servants. Do such clubs actually exist? Since every member would be blackmailable, how could they survive? If you lost everything in a Ponzi scheme, would you betray your lodge members? Just wondering...The movie proves two things. (1) Liam Neeson can bring undeserved credibility to most roles just by playing them, and (2) Luc Besson, the co-writer, whose actioner-assembly line produced this film, turns out high-quality trash, and sometimes much better ("The Fifth Element," "Taxi," "The Transporter," "La Femme Nikita," even "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada"). The bottom line is, if you can't wait for the next "Bourne" thriller, well, you don't have to. I can easily wait, but Truth in Reviewing compels me to confess that if the movie I was describing in the first paragraph sounded as if you'd like this, you probably will. - Roger Ebert
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