“Taken 2”

The original Taken was essentially an extended joke: the world’s most overprotective dad has his paranoia completely validated. The father, played by Liam Neeson, let his teenaged daughter out of his sight just once, for a jaunt to Paris, and the minute she got there she was kidnapped by the Albanian mafia and sold into sexual slavery. The moviegoers who made a surprise hit of the film clearly enjoyed seeing Neeson’s ex-CIA man righteously slaughter his daughter’s abductors, but they also enjoyed the implicit comedy of the situation: that ol’ dad was more or less getting off on being proved right.

In Taken 2, the father-knows-best angle continues, but the joke isn’t developed. In an effort to recover from the traumatic events of the first film, Neeson treats his daughter (Maggie Grace) and wife (Famke Janssen) to a vacation, and where do you think they go? Istanbul, the unofficial human-trafficking capital of the world. This bit of absurdity could’ve been funny if the filmmakers teased out the implications — that Neeson subconsciously wants his daughter kidnapped again to justify another rampage — but they never do. Instead, they trudge through a retread of the first film, the only twist being that Neeson and his wife are the ones who get kidnapped this time, not the daughter. (They’re taken by the father of a man Neeson killed last time around, which is a plot device screenwriters save for when they truly don’t care anymore.)

Director Olivier Megaton and writer-producer Luc Besson threaten to introduce a bit of novelty early on by having the daughter attempt to save ma n’ pa, but they never allow her to think for herself — she just dutifully obeys Neeson’s every instruction via cellphone. I laughed occasionally at the ridiculous things he makes her do (“See that grenade there? I want you to pull the pin, then throw it out the window”) but the real source of humour should’ve been his dictatorial tendencies. Over and over, wife and daughter learn that, in order to survive, they must do exactly as daddy tells them, and never, ever question him on anything. (In case it wasn’t obvious already, Taken 2 will not be winning any Women in Film Awards.)

Setting aside the sexual politics, I should point out that the stuff that ultimately matters — the action — stinks: rote fist fights, tedious car chases through crowded marketplaces, completely unmemorable villains. And Neeson, who was so good in The Grey earlier this year, constantly looks as if he’s just been roused from his trailer. I kept picturing his personal assistant standing off-camera with a little water vaporizer, ready to spritz him at the first sign of sleep. Clearly, he’s not getting off on anything this time around.
 

“Detropia”

A little over a year ago, on a road trip to South Dakota, my boyfriend and I stopped over in Detroit to see the extent of the city’s decay for ourselves. Though I had a pretty good idea what to expect, I was still unprepared for the magnitude of it. You have to see it with your own eyes, I think. Whole streets abandoned; business after business boarded up; knee-high grass everywhere. At one point, in the middle of a particularly deserted residential stretch, we pulled over to consult a map, and as soon as we turned the ignition off, silence enveloped us. I’m not a particularly fearful person, but immediately I began thinking how terrifying it would be to try to remain in such a neighbourhood: no sounds except crickets and your own footfalls, no one to save you if an attacker came near.

Filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing come closer than anyone has in capturing that eerie, forsaken quality in their new documentary Detropia. The movie is a straightforward, non-narrative record of what remains of Detroit, and it seeps into your bones like a horror movie. One of our tour guides is a self-styled “urban explorer” named Crystal Starr, who steals into abandoned homes at night to take pictures for her blog. She’s not a journalist, she’s just compelled to document what’s become of her city, and she takes it all in with an unresolved combination of sadness, anger, guilty excitement, and morbid fascination. Grady and Ewing (the latter of whom is from Detroit and has an auto worker father) adopt roughly the same tonal mix throughout, and they illuminate the ground-level experience of the place via a wide cast of characters: an elderly barkeep, a United Auto Workers chapter head, an opera singer, a young artist couple.

For my money, Grady and Ewing are the most talented documentarians to come along in years. Their previous films — The Boys of Baraka, Jesus Camp, and 12th and Delaware — are all modern classics, and if Detropia doesn’t have the narrative momentum of those works, it has a more epic scope. The movie is a terrifying look at a nation (and world?) in decline, and it leaves you more than a little uneasy. As the barkeep, Tommy Stephens, says while watching the evening news in his empty tavern: “This is coming to you next.”

____