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Initial Thought: I kind of wanted to see this because I really enjoy Sean Penn. The only problem is it feels like Pierre Morel just wants to continue with the Taken style of filming. It's not so much a fun idea like it used to be. I mean hey sometimes it still works. Let's just see how it goes.
Characters/Acting: Sean Penn is a pretty great actor. One of my favorites was I Am Sam. Seeing him as an action lead is a little bit odd, but not so unusual. The rest of the cast is also quite awesome with the likes of Javier Bardem, Ray Winstone, and Idris Elba. The acting is quite good as expected from such a cast. Most of thecharacters however I just really didn't care too much for. Terrier was obviously pretty cool and had some good skills. Felix was such a boring and ridiculous character although Javier Bardem's acting was great. I just thought the way his character was written was lame.
Story: Bryan Mills must clear his name after he is betrayed and thought to be a criminal. Oops sorry that isn't the right character, but it could have been. This plot could fit and even almost sounds a bit like Taken 3. The reason everything goes about here feels so contrived. It's just the dumbest reason to cause all the chaos that happens. The action scenes are really good though whenever they happen at least. The twists are really cliche and just plain predictable. Some of the kills were kind of cool. There really wasn't anything here that we haven't all seen before. The ending was kind of weak.
Directing/Writing: Even though this sounds and looks eerily close to a Taken story it's actually based off of a book by Jean-Patrick Manchette. I never heard of anything by him though. Pierre Morel is the guy who brought us Taken. It seems he just can't shake away from that style of storytelling. I've liked his movies nonetheless. It took three people to co-write this including main star Sean Penn. Don MacPherson also wrote the 1998 bomb The Avengers. That doesn't give a good impression for this. Pete Travis also helped writing this after being a director of Dredd and Vantage Point. So this script seems like it will be wishy washy. It has good talent behind it as well as some not so good.
Final Thought: It isn't that bad. In fact the action here is pretty entertaining. The story here is what falls flat. I was bored with the plot since the beginning. Action and acting aren't the only things to make a movie good. You also have to have a really well thought story which I found this lacking. There are way better movies out there that deal with this same subject. Go watch those as they pull you in much better. It's decent enough to keep your attention if you do decide to watch it.
