TAKEN - 24 the movie

TAKEN is a slick, quick thriller that sticks in the throat. Liam Neeson plays a Jack-Bauer-like US special ops agent whose daughter, Kim, is like Kim Bauer, kidnapped. This being a piece of neo-con agit-prop, the kidnappers don’t have a grudge against her father, or indeed, stepfather, either of which would’ve been interesting. Rather, the kidnappers are improbably traffickers in sex slaves who have decided that their business model would be more profitable if they kidnapped rich young tourists rather than duping poor East Europeans. Now, I can see why this might save on “transport costs” but surely if you and some complicit French rozzers are running a sex-trafficking business you’d rather not attract the attention of rich, angry Yanquis parents putting pressure on the local cops via an irate US embassy?

At any rate, after half an hour of mooning over his sappy daughter, Liam Neeson jumps on a plane and heads to Paris where he single-handedly uncovers the plot and discovers his daughter while killing and torturing lots of cheese-eating surrender monkeys and evil rapist towel-heads. Yes, yes, in this world, every Frenchman carries a baguette under his arm and every Muslim want to rape young Americans. In short, TAKEN is a film whose tone and content are lifted straight out of 24 and whose entire world-view was so roundly mocked in TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE. I can’t quite believe that Liam Neeson agreed to star in such xenophobic, derivative drivel.

TAKEN was released earlier this year in France, Israel, China, South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey, Spain, Australia, Italy, Poland, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Russia, Thailand, Mexico and Venezuela. It opens this weekend in the UK and Portugal and next weekend in Austria and Brazil. It opens in the USA on January 23rd 2009 and in Germany on February 5th.

DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE - Smut! (Part One)

DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE is a deliberately so-bad-it's-funny movie that is all about hot chicks in bikinis using wire-fu badly to kick the shit out of big buff guys. They do this is an international fight-off staged by an ageing hippie who turns out to be an wacko megalomaniac (who knew?!). It's all improbable script, wooden acting, unimaginative lame fight scenes and Bond-like desert island. However, I am told by those who know that a lot of the characters from the video game are there and the "bouncing boob" quotient is also sufficent. There are scenes with wet t-shirts and volleyball. Clearly, I am not the target demographic for this flick and I went to see it coz I lost a bet, but even *I* found it amusing enough for the eighty-five minute duration. As smut goes, this is actually rather mild, and one suspects that your average thirteen-year-old would get better value for money from a copy of Hustler. But what do I know?

DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE is on release in Australia, Italy, the UK and opens in Hong Kong and Turkey on Friday. It opens in Poland on Sep 29th, Germany on Oct 5th, Sweden on Oct 13th, the USA on Oct 20th, in Brazil and Spain in November and in the Netherlands and Estonia in December. DOA finally opens in Belgium on Jan 3rd 2007.