Rewatching ‘Taken’ and The World’s Worst Runner
Just a few days ago, succumbing to a nasty virus that attacked my head and stomach with such ferocity that for a not-short period of time I was quite certain I was going to die, I was forced to call into a work and take a sick day. (Yes, it was the Monday after the Pats-Seahawks on Sunday Night Football. Yes, I was extremely upset by the ending of that particular game. No, I wasn’t hungover. You were hungover. I was sick.)
I’ve been fortunate enough with my health that I have very rarely needed to take sick days. Which is a good thing for a number of reasons but mostly because they’re much different than I remember in high school. Did you know that Bob Barker no longer hosts The Price is Right? Do you know that my Mom is significantly less willing to prepare and bring me food if she has to drive 35 minutes to my apartment to give it to me? Do you know that SportsCenter doesn’t even show highlights anymore-it’s just 90 minutes of two to five talking heads screaming over each other about Tim Tebow? I didn’t know any of these things. I was very disappointed.
However, lest I sound like too much of a complainer, I assure you that taking a sick day isn’t all bad. I learned quite a bit that day. I learned you can’t put soup cans in the microwave. I learned that Pedialyte is not just for babies. Most importantly of all though, I learned that no matter where you are, no matter what time of day, no matter what cable provider you are being ripped off by, Liam Neeson’s Taken is always on TV.
Taken is the perfect sick-day movie. It’s the perfect regular-day movie as well, if we’re being honest. It’s only about 47 minutes long. Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a former special force operative who travels to Paris, France to rescue his daughter from the clutches of an elaborate human trafficking cartel. Mills is not a guy who you want to mess around with, even if you are part of a super secretive human trafficking cartel with government protection. Mills goes to work on those dudes. He breaks roughly 97 different bad guy noses with three or four different body parts. He breaks them with his knees, he breaks them with his fists, he breaks them with his head, he breaks them with his elbows, he breaks them with their own elbows, he breaks them by accident. Neeson’s Broken Bad Guy Nose per minute (BBGNPM) ratio is about 2.06, which is absolutely remarkable. For comparison’s sake, John Wick, another highly impressive movie tough guy has a BBGNPM of just 0.92.
Yes, there are aspects of the movie that don’t hold up to close scrutiny. For example, a man with Bryan Mills “particular set of skills” would never spell his name with a whimsical middle Y. Furthermore, Mills kidnapped daughter, Kim, as played by Maggie Grace, tells her father that she wants to travel around Europe to go museum hopping. That’s a totally ridiculous lie that no father worth his salt would ever believe, and yet Mills falls for it, hook, line, and sinker. Even more ridiculous is the truth clouded by Kim’s lie, that she is actually traveling to Europe to follow U2 on their world tour. In the movie, Kim is not yet 18 years old, which means that there is a less than negative chance that she has ever heard of U2, let alone be such an obsessive fan that she’s willing to follow them around Europe. At one point, in an attempt to convince Bryan that Kim’s eU2opean vacation plans are normal, his ex-wife says, “all the kids are doing it”(!). She says this on purpose(!!) With a straight face (!!!). ALL THE KIDS ARE BACKPACKING THROUGH EUROPE TO SEE U2-A BAND THAT HAS ONE SEMI-RELEVANT SONG IN THE PAST 20 YEARS AND IT BEGINS “UNO DOS TRES CATORCE”. So yes, even more ridiculous than Liam Neeson scaling a building, Spider-Man style, in a leather jacket, is this most important plot point.
Anyways, sorry. Kim goes to Europe. What happens next, that Kim is…Taken, is obvious, but not for the reason you may think. Kim is not Taken because the movie would be a very boring U2 tour documentary if she was not, Kim is Taken because she is genetically predisposed to being Took.
You see, Kim Mills is a terrible runner. She is the worst runner. Despite having two fully functioning legs, Kim Mills is completely incapable of running effectively. No one in the history of working legs or running has ever been worse than running on working legs than Kim Mills is. Even in her happiest, freest moments, Kim Mills looks like a baby deer wearing ice skates wading through a McDonald’s ball pit when she runs. These are the moments leading up to her capture in which Kim Mills is running. Re-watching this movie, re-watching Kim run, it’s a miracle this movie wasn’t called Dead.
Exhibit A: The Birthday Party
Why is Kim running?: She is running towards her step-father-who just bought her a pony (!!!!)
How is Kim running?: Have you ever been roller blading, or seen somebody roller blading, and for whatever reason you or that person you are watching has to make a transfer from the smooth surface of the asphalt onto some grass? The wheels of the roller blades get caught up in the dirt and the grass and the sudden drop in speed causes a person to comically stumble forward, flailing their arms out for balance and hoping that the grass is soft enough to break their fall. Now imagine you put those same roller blades on the pony that Kim was just gifted, and you push that pony down a hill of cement where a field of grass waits below. Imagine what that poor pony would look like as it tried to keep it’s balance. That’s what Kim looks like here.
Exhibit B: Meeting with Dad
Why is Kim running?: She is meeting her father in a café to disucss her impending fraudulent European vacation. She is excited to see him, and so she runs towards his table.
How is Kim running?: She is running as if she is competing in a three-legged race with an imaginary friend. Stiff kneed and without any use of her arms, she looks like she’s bound to something-perhaps the massive lie she’s about to tell.
Exhibit C: Dad says “Yes”
Why is Kim Running?: Her father has just showed up to her house to let her know he will let her take the museum tour. Kim is so excited she takes off running across her foyer to tell her mom.
How is Kim Running?: Like a drunk ostrich. In a span of about four feet, she slips twice. She clings to her surroundings, including her father, for balance. It’s truly amazing. And embarrassing.
Do you know what happens the very next time we, as viewers, spend any significant time with Kim? She gets kidnapped. She gets kidnapped because her father Br(i)an, a very smart man, has seen her run many times before. So as he speaks to her on the phone during her abduction, rather than tell her to make a break for it, he just tells her to hide under the bed and uses that time to immediately start preparing to go get her. It’s the best advice he could have possibly given. For Kim, who gets to live, and for all of us, who get to watch. Everyday.
