I just finished watching the action thriller Taken, which stars Liam Neeson. It's fast-paced and overloaded with cool fighting moves and, when it ended, I sat staring at the screen, my breath taken away. Not because of all the crazy action, but because of the sheer audacity with which the movie has taken to new heights the image of the upright American versus the rest of the evil world, characterized by Albanian flesh traffickers, corrupt French police, and fat old wealthy Middle Eastern tycoons who just want to have sex with American teenagers.
In the movie, Neeson’s character, retired US secret agent Brian Mills, searches Paris for his 17 year old daughter who, while on the first stage of a grand European vacation, is kidnapped by a white slavery ring. In the process he kills a hundred bad guys (I actually forgot how many guys he killed, but he did kill all the bad guys), accuses his former French law enforcement colleagues of being ingrates for not being more helpful, and leaves behind a trail of catastrophic vehicular pile-ups. Is this movie trying to say something about Americans, as in, let them into your country and expect them to wreak havoc? Is it a rant at external forces that Americans feel helpless to do anything about? Or is it just a good old fashioned smash ‘em and bash ‘em? Hmm, let’s dissect this.
Americans are great tourists, just lousy guests. I remember a railway trip I once made from Paris to Barcelona. In the first class car that I was riding were a couple of Japanese, a Swiss family, a sprinkling of French and Spanish, and two American couples. Watching the south of France roll by is a pleasant activity when you’re travelling along that way but not, as I discovered, when you have to share the railcar with Americans who talk in loud mid-Western accents for all the world to hear about their homes, their children, their dogs, the heat of Europe in summer and the enduring complaint that no one speaks English. After five or so hours of having to suffer this (during which time none of us other nationalities stood up for our rights for them to be silent) the conductor came along and requested les Americains to please pipe down, to which one of the women answered, “It’s alright, we’re American”. Chastened, the hapless conductor slunk back to wherever it was he came from. Sigh. And we were just so close to enjoying the scenery. Such effrontery! Such incivility! Such disrespect for the locals! Such... Oh well, it could have been worse. Look at Baghdad.
Back to Taken, the action was great and the fight scenes showcased Brian’s ability to massacre an entire village of Balkan thugs with his bare hands ala Jason Bourne. Never mind that this is happening while he is being shot at from all sides and not being hit. This reminds me somewhat of Michael Douglas demolishing Japanese gangsters in similar fashion in the 1989 yakuza movie Black Rain. This was at a time when Japan was at the height of its economic might and the Japanese were on a US real estate buying spree and setting up Honda and Toyota manufacturing plants in the American heartland. So we’re on to something here – as America's xenophobia grows and Americans see the world as an incomprehensible babel of foreign languages and sinister palette of skin tones, they face their fears in the best way they know: Hollywood style and kickin’ the s__t out of any foreign-looking dude.
In the movie, Neeson’s character, retired US secret agent Brian Mills, searches Paris for his 17 year old daughter who, while on the first stage of a grand European vacation, is kidnapped by a white slavery ring. In the process he kills a hundred bad guys (I actually forgot how many guys he killed, but he did kill all the bad guys), accuses his former French law enforcement colleagues of being ingrates for not being more helpful, and leaves behind a trail of catastrophic vehicular pile-ups. Is this movie trying to say something about Americans, as in, let them into your country and expect them to wreak havoc? Is it a rant at external forces that Americans feel helpless to do anything about? Or is it just a good old fashioned smash ‘em and bash ‘em? Hmm, let’s dissect this.
Americans are great tourists, just lousy guests. I remember a railway trip I once made from Paris to Barcelona. In the first class car that I was riding were a couple of Japanese, a Swiss family, a sprinkling of French and Spanish, and two American couples. Watching the south of France roll by is a pleasant activity when you’re travelling along that way but not, as I discovered, when you have to share the railcar with Americans who talk in loud mid-Western accents for all the world to hear about their homes, their children, their dogs, the heat of Europe in summer and the enduring complaint that no one speaks English. After five or so hours of having to suffer this (during which time none of us other nationalities stood up for our rights for them to be silent) the conductor came along and requested les Americains to please pipe down, to which one of the women answered, “It’s alright, we’re American”. Chastened, the hapless conductor slunk back to wherever it was he came from. Sigh. And we were just so close to enjoying the scenery. Such effrontery! Such incivility! Such disrespect for the locals! Such... Oh well, it could have been worse. Look at Baghdad.
Back to Taken, the action was great and the fight scenes showcased Brian’s ability to massacre an entire village of Balkan thugs with his bare hands ala Jason Bourne. Never mind that this is happening while he is being shot at from all sides and not being hit. This reminds me somewhat of Michael Douglas demolishing Japanese gangsters in similar fashion in the 1989 yakuza movie Black Rain. This was at a time when Japan was at the height of its economic might and the Japanese were on a US real estate buying spree and setting up Honda and Toyota manufacturing plants in the American heartland. So we’re on to something here – as America's xenophobia grows and Americans see the world as an incomprehensible babel of foreign languages and sinister palette of skin tones, they face their fears in the best way they know: Hollywood style and kickin’ the s__t out of any foreign-looking dude.
In the end, it's a good old smash and bash flick - I loved it! Still, however, the ideologue in me managed its revenge against the American imperialists: I watched the movie on a pirate DVD. Take that! And that! Oomph, ugh, (groan)...
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