Pierre Morel
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Nobody (2021)
Directed by Ilya Naishuller
influenced by Taken (2008), The Gunman (2015)
Characters Themes
There is something unseemly and disturbing about how Kolstad and Naishuller try to have it both ways, propping up Hutch as both a figure of repressed middle-class rage in the manner of Michael Douglas in 1993’s Falling Down, and also a trained operative whose skills are reawakened when his family is put in peril, à la Liam Neeson in the Taken films.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Nobody blends Wick isms with the protective-father fodder of Taken and the I’M-NOT-IMPOTENT insistence of male-rage sagas like Falling Down and Death Wish .
Odenkirk really goes to town in this one, raking up a body count that probably doubles that of all three Taken movies combined.
In fact, he’s quite extraordinary, not unlike the basic gimmick in “Taken,” in which a seemingly average character secrets a strikingly formidable set of skills.
There have been many movies and TV shows with similar themes like this, including the “Death Wish” series and the “Kung Fu” and “Equalizer” TV series and recent “Taken,” “John Wick” and “Equalizer” movies.
A natural vehicle for director Ilya Naishuller — following his 2016 Russian GoPro-shot sci-fi action flick “Hardcore Henry” — “Nobody” gathers from the familiar blood-soaked stream of “John Wick,” “Death Wish” and the “Taken” franchise to fashion a savage ode featuring the same mettle of its inspirations but with far greater humor attached to the well-worn beats.
Not only does this film give him a chance to flex his comedic muscles – he’s essentially playing a spoof of his Taken-adjacent roles…
…watching him channel his particular brand of “Taken”-era grimness into a rubber-chicken universe is a rare kind of comedy alchemy…
Neeson’s Frank is kinda like his Taken character, but on steroids.
…his former tough guy screen persona from the Taken movies (and others) gives the role an extra edge of parody…
Playing off Neeson’s action roles in films like Taken (2008), Frank Jr. uses excessive force and a disregard for the law to get results, which jeopardizes Police Squad and puts him in the crosshairs of scheming tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston).
…since 2008’s TAKEN.
It’s as if Stallone is playing, I don’t know, Ron Glambo, an escapee from a Taken and Logan rip-off.
At least the movie has Stallone’s seething, angry face, as every sweaty closeup says more than the bland “Taken” rip-off that forms the movie’s plot.
The movie is basically a more downbeat version of Taken in which Rambo tears across the border from Texas to save his surrogate daughter, Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal), from the murderous, drug-pushing sex-slavers who’ve kidnapped her and pumped her veins full of dope.
That way you can skip the part of the movie where Stallone retcons himself into a Taken rip-off, unable to save a young woman’s virtue but still ready and willing to slaughter a bus load of guys with brown skin.
The film acts as if it is the second coming of Taken on steroids.
The premise is meant to capture the excitement of Denzel Washington in “Man on Fire” (2004) or Liam Neeson in “Taken” (2008), mining thrills from a scorned macho man seeking revenge against the evil doers who have endangered his loved ones.
This one is equally funny, light on its feet and pop-culture savvy, with references to Taken, Pulp Fiction, The Green Mile, Iron Man and more, plus several layers of postmodern hoodwinking that balance deftly between tricksy and daft.
Don’t expect Liam Neeson Taken fist-fighting (frequently referenced), but both sides of the coin are played with a festive darkness that’s certainly not expected upon marketed perceptions.
That’s not to say that all thrillers are inherently boring, but rather something more akin to the Taken movies where it’s oddly comforting rather than something that would genuinely get our adrenaline pumping.
The film is an homage to the recent trend of “kidnapping” thriller movies over the past few years, such as Prisoners and Kidnap , but it takes most of its influence from the hit film franchise Taken.
Playing Scrabble and Jenga hasn’t prepped her for tracking down kidnappers, but movies have, and whether it’s the Taken series or the Quentin Tarantino oeuvre, there’s always a role to slip into.
Cold Pursuit (2019)
Directed by Hans Petter Moland
influenced by Taken (2008), Peppermint (2018)
Themes Characters Plot
Dating back to the original Taken more than a decade ago, the actor has been a staple of action fare, almost becoming an entire sub-genre unto himself.
If one were to expect a Taken (2008) from Neeson, the film thankfully dismantles the vengeance genre and infuses it with absurd characters and flavours of an icy town.
Starting a decade ago with “Taken” and continuing with two sequels and stand-alone items like “Non-Stop” and “The Commuter,” Neeson has become today’s berserker of choice.
Those hearing its logline — Neeson goes on a killing spree to find the crime lord who killed his son — will expect something far different from this wry revenge story, which offers ample violence but is not another post-Taken piece of grim vigilante wish-fulfillment.
With robust and sturdy direction from Hans Petter Moland (who helmed the original Stellan Skarsgård flick), this may be the best of the last ten years' worth of "Liam Neeson kicks ass" movies to spring up in the wake of Taken.
Then, in the spirit of “Taken,” someone robs our hero of a loved one.
Moving from the theme of vigilante dad ( Death Wish) , to the strategies of slave traders who traffic girls into prostitution on Internet auctions ( Trade ), to the tragic spectacle of a scrupulous outsider who slides down the sinkhole of an alternate underworld universe of crime, decadence and perversion (Paul Schrader’s Hardcore ), this hack job has not a shred of originality.
In the propulsively outlandish thriller Taken (it's like Paul Schrader's 1979 Hardcore with no brain and more muscle), Liam Neeson plays a retired CIA agent out to find his daughter, who has been abducted by an Albanian sex trafficker.
Neeson's readiness for worst-case scenariosand screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen's proficiency in queuing them upfuels the high-octane lunacy of Taken, which is a little like Paul Schrader's Hardcore retooled as a Steven Seagal vehicle.
Take the Parisian American kidnapping plot of Roman Polanski's "Frantic" and cross with the father-spiralling-into-the repulsive-world-of-the-porn-industry of Paul Schrader's "Hardcore" then add a dash of "Bodyguard" and Luc Besson's penchant for carrying things way over the top and you've got "Taken," a film that impresses if for nothing else but the way it compelling turns the fifty-six Liam Neeson into an action star.
In a sense, the rather lean theme of happenstance’s cruel randomness ties together two movies: a comedy of errors involving overeducated fools deluded enough to think they can hack the fabric of reality, and a rampaging Taken variant led by the stone-faced, brutal Markus.
The understated, deadpan delivery makes it possible for the film to be both a homage to the vendetta-Daddy genre exemplified by Taken and its ilk, and a complete subversion of its core philosophy: that a man can somehow rewrite the injustices of the world, especially those visited on his womenfolk, if he only has will enough.
“Riders of Justice” riffs on the “old man action hero” niche, recently dominated by Liam Neeson in a handful of synonymous titles including “The Commuter,” “Cold Pursuit,” and “Non-Stop,” movies spun out from the success of the “Taken” franchise.
Imagine the nerds from “The Big Bang Theory” stumbling into the plot of “Taken,” or pretty much any Liam Neeson out-for-revenge thriller.
Mads Mikkelsen stars as the scruffy hero in this gloriously violent Taken knockoff, doing his own spin on Liam Neeson, as a husband and father with a particular set of violent skills.
Mads Mikkelsen reunites with "Men & Chicken" director Anders Thomas Jensen for a bitterly comic "Taken" riff with a major cosmic twist.
Obviously intended to imitate the 2008 hit Taken (right down to the title), this is certainly better than a lot of Cage's endeavours of late, but it still lacks anything resembling originality.
He was referring to " Battleship ," not " Taken ," but the sketch got to "Taken" later, and one sort of can't help but thinking of that while watching " Stolen ," in which the real Nicolas Cage plays a robber-gone-right after a prison stretch ... only he has to go wrong again after an ex-partner kidnaps his now-teenage daughter.
That's right "Stolen" is lifted from " Taken " -- and pretty unashamedly, to boot.
It's a familiar premise, and was handled with some flair in the Liam Neeson action yarn Taken, but here there are just too many standard movie conventions and too few surprises.
Stolen is very different from Pierre Morel's 2008 exploitation megahit Taken : There are six letters in its title, not five.
Stolen has been criticised for its seeming similarity to Liam Neeson's Taken , but those critics must have incredibly short memories.
Putting a reasonably smart twist on the daddy-daughter brand of thriller made so popular by the successful " Taken " franchise, Philipp Stölzl's " Erased " keeps the kiddo around long enough to capitalize on the charming chemistry between its leads and to inject actual emotional value to an otherwise standard spy story.
Eckhart does as much as he can with this soulless melange, but he’s no Liam Neeson, star of the two recent Taken films about, what a coincidence, a single father whose daughter is kidnapped.
But Philipp Stölzl is clearly hopeful that when you’re done with “Taken” (and “Taken 2”), you’ll want more of the same.
Borrowing heavily from the whole Bourne/Taken type of international thriller, our lead is as inert and lifeless as the action backdrop provided by director Philipp Stölzl.
Aaron Eckhart (who’s already had one action hit this year with Olympus Has Fallen) is apparently out to claim Liam Neeson’s mantle: Just like in the Taken films and Unknown, he’s playing an ex-black-ops guy who has to protect/save/find his family in this Europudding action thriller.
“Taken” meets “The Bourne Identity” in “ Erased ,” a familiar but energetic and entertaining actioner that has rolled into numerous territories since last August under the title “The Expatriate.”
The premise is as satisfying as that of Liam Neeson’s Taken franchise, but with Link’s campaign through the trailer-park badlands of California’s Coachella Valley suggesting an Old West version of Hollywood.
The film, written by Peter Craig (the story comes from his 2006 novel) and Andrea Berloff (World Trade Center, Straight Outta Compton), at times feels like just another variant on the particular action genre that was re-established by Taken in 2008 — we have yet another father forced to rely on his particular set of skills to save his daughter from a nightmare scenario.
The relationship between John and Lydia is at the heart of the film, but there's little of the queasy cuteness and sentimentality of a Luc Besson production such as Taken.
French-produced films about American daddies wanting to protect their female offspring have basically become an unofficial subgenre since the success of the first Taken film, so it’s easy to see why French director Jean-Francois Richet (Mesrine, the decent but not exceptional Assault on Precinct 13 remake) signed up to direct Blood Father.
This propulsive crime picture appropriates the daddy-vengeance model of Taken and replaces the joyless, clinical efficiency with Mel Gibson tearing up the screen in full beardy maniac mode.
Mel Gibson reclaims his action hero mojo in Mesrine director Jean-François Richet's slick pulp thriller, even if it does feel like a trashier carbon copy of Liam Neeson's Taken.
“The Foreigner” starts off as a fairly straightforward revenge film, with echoes of “Death Wish,” “Taken” and even 1992’s “Patriot Games.”
“The Foreigner” begins with a bang, setting itself up as yet another in a seemingly endless line of shameless “Taken” ripoffs (and that’s perfectly fine, because “Taken” is definitely a movie that’s missing Jackie Chan).
Yep, he’s a little bit Liam (coincidentally the name of his adversary here), but you can’t call the movie a full-on rip-off of the Neeson-starring Taken because it’s adapted from a novel published 25 years ago.
I honestly expected a brainless action flick in the vein of Taken .
In the “Taken” movies, it’s just wonderfully ridiculous watching nice, easygoing Liam Neeson turn into a homicidal maniac.
It’s the kind of deeply personal quest for vengeance where a Liam Neeson in Taken mode would come in might handy.
Edge of Darkness (2010)
Directed by Martin Campbell
influenced by Taken (2008)
Themes Characters Visuals Plot
Interestingly, the movie is also the polar opposite of another popular film on a similar subject that appeared a year or so before this one: Liam Neeson's "Taken."
Films like Taken may seem unrealistic and brutal but they’ve also managed to tap into something very carnal.
For me though, Gibson’s avenging dad routine couldn’t begin to measure up to Liam Neeson’s ferocious interpretation of this same role in last year’s surprise box-office smash, Taken.
Warner Bros.' relentless aping of the Taken ad campaign, from the trailers on down to the very color scheme of the one sheet design, for Martin Campbell's big screen adaptation of his own 1980s BBC television miniseries, initially strikes as comical, but after seeing this version of Edge of Darkness, it comes off a bit desperate.
Borrowing in equal parts from Mel’s own “Ransom” and “Payback” as well as the recent and unexpectedly popular “Taken,” “Edge of Darkness” serves up a grim and rather lack luster revenge tale.
A tsunami of raw paternal energy propelled us through 2008's " Taken ," and "Edge" cries out for some of that single-minded force.
Catch the Fair One (2022)
Directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka
influenced by Taken (2008)
Plot Visuals Characters Themes
This is a thriller in the “Taken” vein, although more rooted in a personal experience than mindless action.
It doesn't evince the same level of unruly auteurism as, say, Lynne Ramsay’s masterful You Were Never Really Here (2017), but it’s closer to that film than it is to Taken (2008).
In many ways, she is like the female equivalent of Liam Neeson in the film Taken , in terms of how Wladyka portrays Kaylee’s power and confidence.
This is not the cartoon, meme-worthy world of Liam Neeson in Taken .
Executive produced by Darren Aronofsky (and produced by Nomadland Oscar winner Mollye Asher), it’s a lean, efficient variation on Taken in which women are both predator and prey, and happily-ever-afters are best left to the imagination.
This minimalistic character study contains a violent ferocity that’s not for the weak of heart, and the catharsis of a trafficking film like “Taken,” where a former CIA assassin (Liam Neeson) goes to rescue his daughter from Albanian traffickers with immensely satisfying revenge payoffs, is nowhere to be found here.
Death Wish (1974)
Directed by Michael Winner
influenced Peppermint (2018), Taken (2008)
Themes Characters
Owing its existence to a revenge genre of vigilante justice that morphed from Westerns to urban retribution stories, notably in 1974 when Charles Bronson took the law into his own hands in Michael Winner's "Death Wish," "Taken" is quick to send the hero on a body count mission.
You can trace a direct line from Michael Winner’s insidious 1974 vigilante film Death Wish to Peppermint, Philip Morel’s by-the-numbers, and problematic, revenge film.
Two underperforming action duds (From Paris With Love, The Gunman) later finds Morel following the spoor of Charles Bronson’s Death Wish cycle.
Vigilante revenge thrillers in the style of 1974’s Death Wish feel positively old-fashioned.
The woman looks more like a soccer mom than John Wick, “The Equalizer’s” Robert McCall or — going waaaaay back — Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish” vigilante Paul Kersey.
Ever since Death Wish got the sub-genre ball rolling way back in 1974, these movie have popped up with increasing frequency and accelerating body counts.
What could have been a standard Taken-esque snatch-and-grab thriller takes on towering dimension in PTA’s visionary hands.
…the movie is like if Taken and The Big Lebowski had a baby…
This is not some kind of Taken situation, the helpless daughter who must be saved…
Where’s Liam Neeson (“Taken”) and his particular set of skills when you need him to liven up a humorless, pointless exercise?
At its best, Snatched is cleverer than its Taken-invoking double entendre of a title would suggest.
Judging by the mildly naughty past-participle title, you might as well see “Snatched” as a raunchy female comedy version of “Taken,” assuming you care to see it at all.
This spoof of Taken pairs today's comedy firebrand Amy Schumer and yesterday's icon Goldie Hawn as Emily and Linda, a vacationing mother and daughter fighting and fleeing their Colombian captors.
Their dilemma is less like Taken, more like Outrageous Fortune, the low-brow Bette Midler–Shelley Long vehicle from the ’80s.
Hawn and Schumer’s characters are captured, but they keep managing to escape, making “Snatched” less a comic version of “Taken” and more like something out of a “Scooby Doo” plot.
It’s more or less a “Taken” clone, swapping Liam Neeson for Halle Berry in a minivan, and Europe for Bayou Country in Louisiana.
It’s a chase movie and, in intention, “Kidnap” is more like “Speed” than “Taken.”
The first 20 minutes or so, as Karla races through highway traffic after the kidnappers’ car, makes you hopeful that Kidnap's creators might try to sustain a feature-length, nonstop vehicle chase: Speed meets Taken.
Written by Knate Lee and directed by Luis Prieto, the movie is basically a one-character, mama-bear version of Taken.
Perhaps inspired by the success of Taken and its imitators, Kidnap stars Berry as a determined mother who does everything she can to rescue her young son from the criminals who have abducted him.
“Kidnap” is effectively “Taken” if the abducted child’s parent were a normal person and not a retired torturer with a very special set of skills, but the movie takes things a little bit too far in that direction.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
Directed by Mike Newell
influenced by District B13 (2004)
Visuals
Director Mike Newell doesn't just steal from "Pirates" - he borrows the Pierre Morel stunts from "District B13" and an Arab whip-master who goes all the way back to the first Indiana Jones.
Sure, the constant careening off walls and pillars and rooftops is more District B13 than Disney, but when you’ve got the man who made Pirates of the Caribbean into an entertainment zombie (read: almost impossible to kill), and a video game basis to guide your spectacle, we should expect a little unrealistic bravura.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)
Directed by Edward Zwick
influenced by Taken (2008)
Plot Characters
The intelligence level is reminiscent of the worst of the Liam Neeson Taken s.
With Samantha in tow, Reacher and Turner almost create a kind of makeshift family on the run, and as they fight their way through Washington, D.C., and later New Orleans, “Never Go Back” begins to feel more like one of Liam Neeson’s “Taken” movies than anything else.
Samantha ( Danika Yarosh ) is loud and feral, seemingly raised by wolves, and she definitely wins the prize for Most Annoying Action Movie Daughter Since Maggie Grace in “Taken.”
Reacher in the books is a noble knight-errant, but Cruise plays him as a generic tough guy in the Liam Neeson "Taken" mode, with little wit or depth.
So the thing plays about as well as, say, the second installment in the Liam Neeson “Taken” franchise.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Directed by Luc Besson
influenced by District B13 (2004)
Themes
The big mystery at the film’s center shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve ever seen a Besson-directed or produced action movie (it shares certain themes with District B13, The Transporter 3 and Space Jail), which leaves a hole where the film’s tension or suspense should be.