Liam Neeson’s action blockbuster Taken could have been another inconsequential throwback to action movies of the 1980s, but instead the film completely changed the actor’s career path. Neeson had been mostly known for his role in dramas such as Schindler’s List, the comedy Love, Actually, and, of course, his venture into the Star Wars universe as Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace, but Taken changed all that overnight. After being available to rent or buy on various platforms, the movie has now found a streaming home on Max.
Taken stars Neeson as Bryan Mills, a former CIA agent whose daughter is kidnapped by human traffickers, leading him to make an often parodied speech to her captors, and embark on a brutal mission to save her. The movie, directed by Pierre Morel, combined its emotional father/daughter story with plenty of action sequences that appealed to audiences on a huge scale. Neeson’s formidable Mills returned in two Taken sequels – the less said about the critical response to those the better – and the actor found himself catapulted onto a whole new career trajectory relatively late in his career.
Release Date February 18, 2008
Runtime 91
Tagline The time for revenge has come.
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While Taken scored a huge win at the box office, grossing $226.8 million globally from just a $25 million budget, the reaction of critics could have quite easily derailed Neeson’s new venture before it had a chance to attract an audience. The film still holds a 60% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes, while the audience score is a much more decisive 85%, proving that even two decades ago it was not unusual for critics to view movies a little differently to the audiences that essentially decided whether a movie was a success or failure.
Liam Neeson Takes Another Career Pivot With The Naked Gun
WWE/Paramount/Dimenson Films
After more than a decade as an action hero, Neeson is about to make another unexpected shift back to comedy as the lead in a reboot of The Naked Gun. Following in the footsteps of Leslie Nielsen, another actor who turned from drama to slapstick comedy later in his career, Neeson will play the son of Frank Drebin, Frank Drebin Jr, in a direct reference to the original Naked Gun trilogy and Files from the Police Squad! TV series. Following in the footsteps of Nielsen is certainly a daunting task, one that Neeson is a little nervous about.
“I’ve done a couple of, like, TV skits with Stephen Colbert and Ricky Gervais, but those were two minutes, three minutes tops. But I’m a bit nervous about Naked Gun, because it’s a feature film… If he tests it well, which I’m sure he will, Akiva Schafer is our writer-director. And there’s lots of funny gags, lots of funny visual gags happening at the same time while ‘serious things’ are being discussed, you know.”
Related Original Naked Gun Director is ‘Not Excited’ About Liam Neeson Reboot: ‘They Haven’t Involved Me’ ‘
David Zucker pulled no punches when airing his view on being cut out of the Naked Gun reboot, but still has time to take a jab at O.J. Simpson.
The Naked Gun is expected to be released sometime in 2025, while in the meantime, fans can relive the innuendo-filled original movies on Max. At the same time, you could also check out Taken to see exactly what happens when someone with a certain set of skills gets angry and heads out to save them – just don’t expect any beaver jokes in that one.
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