An unexpected box office monster, in part because it is so effective on a primordial level - a lonely single middle aged man who only lives for his teenage daughter listens as that daughter is kidnapped and sets about getting her back. The set up is familiar to a 1986 film, Targets, where Gene Hackman was revealed to be a kick arse killed. Hackman had to rescue his wife and was helped by son Matt Dillon. Here Neeson has to act mostly on his own, although he does have the benefit of some old associates he can draw upon.
There's a lot in this movie that people will find offensive - basically the notion of daughters as property, all the dick measuring, the constant fear of foreigners (Paris, Albanians, Arabs), the fact the daughter gets to live because she's a virgin but not the slutty best friend. On a craft level it's frustrating the movie doesn't really develop - it's like a video game with Liam Neeson moving from one level to the next. There's not even the one villain - new ones keep coming along (the good looking Peter, the guy Liam speaks to on the phone, a smarmy American, a dodgy Arab). I kept expecting to see a character like Jeffrey Hunter in The Searchers to flesh out Liam's character and provide more complexity but it never happened. Indeed, the story was disappointingly linear, the only real twist being the betrayal from Liam's old mate - I kept expecting say some relationship between Liam and that girl he rescued, or to use the step father character more (all he does is lend Liam a plane when really he could've got a normal flight), or the wife more.
Still, it is extremely stylish with some excellent action sequences and Liam proves to be an ideal hero - battered, smart, soulful, haunted.
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