MOVIE MONDAY MOVING TO FRIDAY
Remember when Arrested Development moved from Fox to HBO? Remember when The Ren & Stimpy Show moved from Nickelodeon to Spike TV? If you do, this will soften the blow. If not, this will only sting temporarily.
Now that the summer is over and school is back in session, I’ve chosen to feature my favorite films on frisky Friday instead of melancholy Monday. I’m doing this in hopes that we can UP the conversational aspect of film talk right here on the site by encouraging everyone to actually watch/re-watch (if possible) the featured flick over the weekend and discussing our thoughts on it (including me). Bad idea, you say? Well frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.
So let’s make this thing an international interactive insider’s film fan movie club.
Redundancies aside, #allnerdswelcome.
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(Grabs the goldfish) “Who’s comin’ with me?”
Movie Monday: Taken (2008)
If you’ve been a reader of this blog for a very long time, you’d know that my all-time favorite movie is Taken. :-) I watched it last year alone, in my parents’ bedroom, and I ended up weeping after because I LOVED it. You may think I’m being biased with favorites because I’m a fan of action films, but this one’s different. It’s not your typical action movie—it has family drama in it, which made me emotional all throughout the whole movie.
Bryan Mills is a retired CIA operative and a trained assassin of sorts who dedicated most of his life to his career, thus, he lost in touch with his family. Now, he’s spending his time reconnecting and trying to build a closer relationship with his daughter, Kim. The screencap above shows the scene where Bryan is handing Kim a present, which is a karaoke machine, knowing that her daughter had wanted to be a singer when she was younger. This part kinda made me happy and sad at the same time because although Kim gladly accepted his gift (aww), she appreciated his wealthy stepfather’s gift more than Bryan’s, even in front of his face (which showed in the next scene).
Fast forward to the movie, Kim had wanted to go on a trip to France with her girlfriends, but her permission slip required her father’s signature, and even though Bryan was reluctant about the whole thing since he knows the world is a “dangerous place”, he went against his better judgement and signed the slip.
And this is when the movie actually begins: after arriving at the airport and checking in their Paris residence, a group of Albanians have already broken inside the house, who, by the way, are part of the human trafficking and prostitution ring. This is one of my favorite scenes in the movie: when Kim immediately called for her Dad and told him the situation and that she’s in danger already. He tried to talk to her calmly and made her tell him the details of the Albanians and other concrete information, whilst trying to deal with the fact that the kidnapper was just right near her, ready to kidnap her.
Armed with the little information he had gathered before she was taken away, he hopped on a plane to Europe and conducted impressive detective work to track down the bad guys. The maze started here, with all the killing, shooting, and hunting, in a desperate attempt to save his daughter. I was really amazed with most of the stunts and action scenes although some could be far-fetched and painfully real at the same time. The movie showed how far a father would go just for his daughter. Their father-daughter connection may already be gone, but the father’s love for her is evident in the movie. A must-watch, indeed!
Screencaps are from here.
