Three Films Make A Post: Stay Alive Or Die Trying

The Furies (2019): Women are kidnapped and then trapped in a picturesque patch of Australian wilderness, together with a bunch of beefy guys in creepy masks who go about murdering them. But there’s something slightly more going on, for this is all part of some sort of live stream game for rich perverts, so there are a couple of rules for the women to find out.

So yeah, Tony D’Aquino’s film does mix a couple of popular sub-genres in not terribly original but also definitely not boring ways, throws some decent acting by Airlie Dodds, Linda Ngo and the rest of the cast in, provides some nice practical gore (if you’re a fan of eye mutilation, you will have a hell of a time), and adds the usual stuff about how people in extreme situations pretty much suck. It looks pretty good, and is well paced and competently written in any case, so there’s ninety minutes of good, icky fun to be had.

Peppermint (2018): One morning, a Hollywood studio executive stumbled upon a script about a vengeance seeking urban vigilante in the Punisher style meant for Liam Neeson, and found Taken director Pierre Morel tied to a radiator too. The only problem: Neeson had just given another one of those interviews where he says he’s not making action films anymore for at least the next couple of weeks. Fortunately, the exec’s favourite intern had an idea, so they hired Jennifer Garner for the Neeson role. Well, at least that’s what I imagine the origin story of Morel’s film to be, and it is pretty much the film you’ll imagine it to be. The set-up in this one feels particularly cartoonish, but otherwise, it’s a professional, competently done entry into this sub-genre, with a lead actress who is usually good with the more physical stuff, and a totally by the numbers script by Chad St. John that still manages to be entertaining enough, if one is in the mood for this dubious kind of revenge fantasy.


The Fugitive (1993): But let’s finish on a blast from the just as competent past, when Harrison Ford was an action star, people wanted to work with Tommy Lee Jones, and director Andrew Davis was semi-hot as an action and action thriller director. The script by David Twohy and Jeb Stuart is – despite a running time of over two hours – efficient and economical, which does provide the film with a breathless pace that’s exactly right for Davis’s particular talents. However, the writing is so stripped down that what little actual plot there is feels rather undercooked, the identity of the killer’s boss obvious simply by that character being the only one on screen who has enough lines to be a traitor to Harrison-Ford kind, and while everything’s certainly very exciting, it’s never surprising or particularly interesting. Though, to be fair, if you’re looking for an ultra-efficient rollercoaster without any ambition apart from that, this is pretty much your perfect film.

Taken (2008)

Bryan (Liam Neeson) is a retired CIA covert operative now living in LA to get closer to his estranged daughter Kim (Maggie Grace; whose supposed to be seventeen is movie-magically looks a lot younger than in Lost) after years of ignoring her.

I guess this would be a lot easier if his job experience hadn't made him a bit paranoid. He's nearly freaking out when he hears that Kim (can it be a coincidence she shares the name of the useless-except-for-being-kidnapped character from 24?) is planning on travelling to that hotbed of danger, Baghdad Paris, but caves in after some time.

Of course our primitive continent turns out to be just as dangerous as the professional killer from the country with the much higher rate of violent crime prophesized and Kim and the friend she's travelling with are promptly kidnapped after their arrival. They are the victims of a not-very-bright gang of Albanian human traffickers that specializes in kidnapping foreign tourists in Paris and turning them into prostitutes. Kidnapping those young women who are going to be missed the most and can cause international pressure to be put on the local law enforcement has worked out perfectly fine for them, of course.

At least until Bryan arrives and turns Paris into his own private warzone. Neither the corrupt French authorities (I am rather surprised that this is actually a French film) nor lots and lots of thugs can stop him from getting his daughter back.

 

I wouldn't have expected Liam Neeson to be such a great action movie actor. It turns out he is the real secret weapon of the film and soon helped me forget the very stupid set-up for all the death and destruction. Neeson is of course not a martial artist, instead he's a real actor who is able to give Bryan a little more depth than the script provides, making him one of the more frightening anti-heroes of his type, all barely controlled rage and intensity and completely convincing violence.

Director Pierre Morel should be known through his excellent debut Banlieue 13. Taken isn't as grandly over the top intense and mad as the former film that turned the rather strange art of parcour into a perfect action movie base. This has nothing to do with Morel failing and a lot with Morel being able to make different movies in the same genre - an ability I wish more young directors had. Being less extreme doesn't make the action sequences here any less excellent than those in Banlieue 13, though. Morel goes for a different feel to the action here, something more gritty and theoretically realistic, which of course mostly means that the stunts and fights do look more like people hurting each other and less like dancing - as it should be in a movie with this type of storyline and such a remorseless "hero". Neeson (and his stunt doubles) seem to be game for anything that is thrown at them, giving everything a sheen of believability that is only further strengthened by the sort of old-fashioned sense of camera work and editing that shows more of the action than just a shaking camera.

So, if you like to see Liam Neeson playing something different or want to see a fine contemporary action film from Europe and are willing to suspend your disbelief for the first twenty minutes of a movie, I can highly recommend Taken to you.

 

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