Liam Neeson Movie Marathon

            Last weekend, my wife, Casey, and I decided to open a bottle of wine and watch some mindlessly entertaining movies. The bottle of wine, a Malbec called Layer Cake, had chocolate cake on the label—too bad the label was the best part of the wine. For mindless entertainment, we chose two Liam Neeson movies, Taken 2 and Nonstop. Taken 2 proved mostly a sluggish bore, while Nonstop was a ludicrous and entertaining thriller.    

            I am an unabashed fan of the first Taken. I first watched it at my parents’ house when my brother had ordered it from Netfix (remember when you used to get discs from Netflix?).  The first half hour was laborious, but necessary for establishing the plot. It portrayed Neeson’s Bryan Mills as a man with a special set of skills and tried to convince the audience that Maggie Grace (playing Neeson’s daughter Kim) could pass as a sixteen year old girl. Once Kim gets kidnapped the film kicks into high gear. It surges forward as Neeson’s Mills swiftly and ruthlessly does whatever is necessary to find his daughter. Along the way he destroys a trailer park brothel, shoots up a building full of Eastern European human traffickers, interrupts a high end party by shooting its host, and finally kills a boatful of men protecting the Arab sheik who bought his daughter. Note the not so subtle reveal of how the sexual exploitation of women transcends social class.  In the end, Mills saves his daughter and goes home happy. Taken is not an intellectually or morally complex movie, rather it’s an action movie that for the last hour remembers why we like action movies in the first place. Neeson propels the plot from each escalating set piece by unabashedly displaying his determination and desire to get his daughter back.

Taken 2 sputters around by focusing too much on Bryan Mills’s family life.  Maggie Grace is 32 and ten years ago played a teenage girl on Lost. Yet the film begins by insisting that Kim is now only old enough to be taking her driver’s test. There’s also Bryan still pining for his ex-wife, her crumbling marriage, and Kim’s new boyfriend. Eventually the film shifts to Istanbul where the patriarch of the Eastern European traffickers from the first film has sworn revenge. Unfortunately, the patriarch (I’m not sure he’s even given a name) spends much of the film driving around Istanbul, issuing orders, and mumbling about getting revenge for scumbag son. The action scenes drag as well. Rather than using the set pieces to build towards a climatic confrontation, the film divides its time between two finales. First Kim must help save Bryan from his kidnappers. She casually tosses grenades, deftly avoids her kidnappers, and demonstrated Formula One level driving skills as she navigates a stick-shift cab through Istanbul. The second half features Bryan hunt down the patriarch only to have him give up without a fight. What should have been an uncomplicated action sequel instead became burdened down by the useless baggage from the first film.

            Nonstop fulfilled all the hopes I had for Taken 2. Neeson plays a former NYPD officer turned air marshal who receives a death threat from a passenger. 150 million dollars in twenty minutes or a passenger dies. The plot then barrels forward as Neeson searches for the culprit. His paranoia builds along with the body count. Overqualified actors surround Neeson at every turn, lending an air of seriousness and sincerity to a ludicrous airplane thriller. The pilot is Batman’s dad! The stewardesses are Lady Mary from Downton Abbey and Patsey from 12 Years a Slave. Four time Oscar nominee Julianne Moore plays Neeson’s seatmate. Character actor Corey Stoll also portraying a cop, lends credence to the passengers who question and resist Neeson’s actions. As Neeson struggles with his own past—his daughter died and he was a terrible father—the plot propels ludicrously forward as friends become enemies, enemies become friends, and around and around it goes. The film’s ostensible point is about post 9/11 complacency about airline safety, but theme and logic don’t matter here. The filmmakers deliver a satisfying and physically impossible climax as Neeson shoots the bad guy while the plane crashes around him. The film’s fun comes from watching Neeson and the rest of the talented cast unravel the insanity around them.