Wednesday March 18, 2009
A father’s anguish
Compiled by MUMTAJ BEGUM
Taken sheds a different light on actor Liam Neeson’s capabilities.
LIAM NEESON an action hero? Seriously? Sure, this tall Irish actor has been associated with a couple of action films including Batman Begins, K-19: The Widowmaker and Star Wars: Episode I, but he really goes beyond anything he’s done before with Taken. Directed by Pierre Morel with a script co-written by Luc Besson (who is also the film’s producer), Taken sees Neeson delivering knock-’em-dead punches, producing a lot of bullet holes and executing a deadly chase à la Jason Bourne.
In Taken, Bryan Mills (Neeson) decides to take up early retirement just to spend more time with Kim (Maggie Grace), his teenage daughter whom he has hardly seen. Just as he’s making a breakthrough with her, a gang that specialises in selling young women snatches her while she is on vacation in Paris. Mills cannot sit by helplessly as his daughter disappears without a trace. Thus, he takes it upon himself to get her back, and this results in non-stop action for viewers.
Bryan (Liam Neeson) goes on a solo mission to rescue his kidnapped daughter in Taken. Despite the unrelenting action sequences, Morel never wanted the audience to forget that Mills is not a young man. So what the audience sees is an older, more fragile man who is out of practice. To ensure that Mills’ vulnerability comes through clearly, Morel had the 56-year-old actor do as much of the fighting scenes and the stunts as possible – without getting him to jump off a bridge or throw himself in front of the cars, of course!
In an interview transcript provided by Tayangan Unggul, Morel said: “(Neeson) did all the fight scenes after spending hours rehearsing each routine. It was particularly demanding for him because I didn’t want to speed up the action too much for the camera. Liam really did learn to fight strong.”
Although Neeson attested that training was intense and he had to pay close attention to how he moved for the camera, which required a lot of energy on his part, he found the experience vastly enjoyable, especially the hand-to-hand combats. Neeson said: “The little boy in you comes out. With good stuntmen, especially, the fight becomes a dance that you perform with great pleasure.”
The actor added: “I liked the idea of making a thriller that had good pace and aimed high on an emotional level. Above all, we see Bryan as a father who idolises his daughter. But then, even though it’s never been a fantasy of mine to play James Bond, one gets a real kick out of shooting real movie baddies and driving like a racing car driver.”
Neeson, who has two children with actress Natasha Richardson, expressed that as a parent, there is nothing worse than when one’s child is kidnapped. “You wonder what your own reaction would be in that situation. You picture what you’d do to her kidnappers, and you soon come to the conclusion that you’d do anything in your power to save your child. I found this particularly interesting territory, because I’m traditionally against violence, especially the kind of violence Bryan resorts to in the movie. But it’s a case of ‘them or me’ and Bryan takes that situation to its logical conclusion.”
Besides the action, Taken also boasts of interesting scenes filmed around Paris, showcasing both known places in the city and the more anonymous neighbourhoods. According to Morel, he wanted to avoid clichés like a character posing in front of the Eiffel Tower but at the same time wanted it known that the location is Paris. “We ended up filming on the Champs Elysées the day after the presidential elections, with half the streets blocked because the new president decided to parade down the avenue. We filmed the scene surrounded by riot police.”
The director also shot a lot of the scenes at night. “We thought we’d complicate things slightly by shooting at night and by not smashing anything up. Actually, we smashed up quite a lot, but not on camera. In the sense that he’s not shaking off pursuers, but chasing after a boat, so crashes weren’t important. It’s his speed and skill that counted.” –
Taken will begin showing in cinemas nationwide tomorrow.
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