Taken and Gran Torino (Mini-reviews)

Taken (2009)
Director - Pierre Morel
Cast
Liam Neeson - Bryan Mills

Liam Neeson is Bryan Mills, an ex-CIA 'Preventer' who goes on a serious Ass-kicking spree (there is no other way to say it) when his daughter is abducted by an Albanian-mafia group that sells young girls into the underground sex-trade.

I just summed up the entire movie for you. Let it sink in. I'll give you some time. While you wait take a look at the cast I credited...You only need to know one name.

A lot of people die in this movie, and they all die by the hand of Neeson. Intent on doing anything and everything to find and save his daughter (he apparently only has 96 hours or she will vanish) he makes his away around Europe following clues and torturing people.

Again, I already summed up the movie, but I just did it again.

Ok, it's an action movie with a lot of killing. Fine. I'll even give it a good review as far as that goes. Unfortunately it is a waste of time otherwise. I have heard some people compare it to the Bourne movies and all I can say to that is, no, not even close. This is strictly there for a little more than an hour and fifteen minutes of mindless bang for your buck. Just know that going in.

5/10


Gran Torino (2008)
Director - Clint Eastwood
Cast
Clint Eastwood - Walt Kowalski

Clint Eastwood plays Walt, an old army vet who just lost his wife. He lives in a Detroit neighborhood surrounded by any and all ethnicities from Asia. He is seemingly the only white person left in town.

And Walt is angry. Walt is pissed off at the world and pretty much epitomizes a steryotypical biggot and racist. Through a series of events he comes to befriend, in a sense, the children next door who spend most of the movie fending off gang violence.

Walt's Gran Torino vehicle is the glue of the movie, linking him to the boy and the gang and ultimately, it proves to be a link between life and death.

This film had potential to be good, but while Eastwood gives a really great performance, his surrounding cast of child actors is so incompetent that it is almost laughable. Actually, I did laugh out loud a few times at basic lines being read.

The script has some holes as well, and they are obvious. Overall, see the movie if you are interested in learning a lot of new off-the-cuff jokes or you are fromt he Detroit area, otherwise, wait for a Friday night on cable.

6/10