'Taken,' challenges for worst movie of all time

The body count isn't the only thing ridiculous here.

By Patrick Daugherty

Published Feb. 5, 2009

There is no single "worst movie of all time." The phrase is more of a concept, an aesthetic, than an actual discernible thing. So, "Taken" cannot be called the worst movie of all time. There is nothing tangibly worse about it than, say, "Battlefield Earth" or "Good Luck Chuck."

But is "Taken" part of the exclusive "WMOAT" club? A WMOAT must rise above the level of just plain awfulness and take bad filmmaking to breathtaking, previously unseen heights. It must feature horrible casting, shoddy editing, cringe-inducing dialogue, no obvious logic driving its events, complete amorality, implausible happenings, stunts and advancement of time and be completely out of touch.

It's by adhering to these guidelines that "Taken" not only knocks on, but kicks down the door to the WMOAT club.

It is apparent from the first frame that "Taken" isn't just any bad movie when the ludicrously cast Liam Neeson is shown agonizing over which karaoke machine to buy for his teenage daughter.

Viewers are supposed to believe the debonair Irishman, prone to starring in sprawling epics and period pieces, is nothing but a hapless American dad. We are then shown that he is a normal, down-to-earth American by the barbecue he has with his former CIA buddies (he's an ex-CIA agent).

From there, things systematically go from bad to worse as Neeson's daughter leaves Los Angeles to go tramping around Europe with her best friend -- to follow U2. Apparently the makers of "Taken" have less of a clue about what is going on with the youth of America than Mitt Romney.

So the girls arrive in Paris, share a cab with a strange Frenchman, agree to go to a party with the strange Frenchman and have their location given to some Albanian gangsters who kidnap them and sell them into sex trafficking by the strange Frenchman. Conveniently, Neeson hears it all happen on the phone, and vows to find the girls/kill the Albanians.

Then, all in 16 hours, Neeson commissions a private jet from his ex-wife's new husband, discovers the identity of the captors and arrives in Paris ready to blow shit up, kill people, never sleep and display absolutely no emotion.

From here, he embarks on a streak of amoral killing and destruction rivaled by few other films in cinema history.

Among other things, he shoots a former friend's wife to make a point, destroys a quarry, burns down a brothel, electrocutes a gangster who has just given him valuable information, kills about 200 other gangsters and leaves the corpse of his daughter's friend laying in a brothel bed.

Eventually, he finds his daughter on a sheik's boat, kills the sheik, comes home and gives his daughter the singing lessons with an international pop star he got her before they left for Paris. Yep.

While "Taken" would be a career killer for many, the $24 million it made last weekend should soften the blow it gives to Neeson's reputation.

As for the people who paid the $24 million? There's only one word: damn.