Movie Reviews - Taken, The Searchers, High Noon

Taken (2008) This is an action thriller about a retired CIA operative whose daughter is kidnapped in Paris by a gang of human slavers.  The girls are sold into prostitution and he's going to get his daughter back.  You now know pretty much everything you need to about this movie.  Given that information you should know that lots of people are going to be shot, stabbed and beaten in this movie.  The tempo is fast, the villains are evil and goodness wins out in the end.  The script is so cheesy that Liam Neeson, who plays the dad, thought it was a straight to DVD movie.  In fact it re-launched his career as an action hero and made well over 200 million dollars worldwide.  The best thing about this movie is Neeson, pretty much everyone and everything else isn't worth remembering.  The good news is that he makes the movie fun to watch just as long as you don't spend too much time with your brain engaged.

Rating - *** Worth A Look

The Searchers (1956) - This movie presents a bit of a challenge to me.  The American Film Institute (AFI) named this film the Greatest Western of All Time in 2008 and the #12 Greatest Movie of All Time in 2007.  There's critical reviews that would stack 3 feet high that agree.

I'm just not sure I get it.

Here's what argues in the movie's favor.  John Ford's direction.  Do I need to say any more?  Visually this film is stunning as per usual with John Ford working Monument Valley.  It's big and it's epic and it's just gorgeous.  Put a more than competent cast into that backdrop (John Wayne in what he always claimed as his favorite role, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond plus the young Natalie Wood and even younger Lana Wood playing the same character at different ages) and you would think that you're home free.  And yet somehow you never get there.

The story follows the family of brothers Ethan and Aaron Edwards.  Ethan (Wayne) went off to fight for the Confederacy while Aaron stayed behind and got the girl.  There's an obvious subtext here that is never spoken that once upon a time there had been a big something between Ethan and his now sister-in-law.  There's an Indian raid that draws the local men off.  While they're gone the Indians raid the Edwards homestead and kill everyone except young Debbie (Woods) who is carried off.  The rest of the movie is the story of Ethan and Martin Pawley (Hunter), the young half breed adopted by the Edwards family as a boy and raised as one of the family, to find Debbie.

The movie is, as many movies of the day were, overtly racist.  But it goes beyond the usual "savage redskin" stuff and moves on to justifying genocide.  This is well into "the only good injun is a dead injun" territory.  Beyond that is a strong streak of misogyny with the repeated "wisdom" that Debbie is better off dead after having "been with a Comanche buck".

Even allowing for the context of the time period of the production this story is just nauseating.  That's what really gets me about the "Greatest Western of All Time" label.  Is this really what we want representing the entire genre as the very best?

Rating - *** Worth A Look

High Noon (1952) - Now here's a western that appeals to me much more as the greatest of all time.  (It's interesting to note that John Wayne did not like this movie at all especially the ending.  He and director Howard Hawks would make "Rio Bravo" as a response to High Noon).  It's the story of Marshall Will Kane (Gary Cooper) who has just married Amy a Quaker (Grace Kelly) and promised her that he will hang up his guns for good.  Unfortunately an outlaw that Kane had sent to prison is coming back on the noon train with revenge on his mind.  Kane feels it's his duty to protect the town one last time.  The problem for him is that no one agrees.  His new wife prepares to leave him for picking up his guns and the towns people refuse to back in against the outlaws.  In the end he will face all of his troubles alone.

This movie is a great western and the inspiration for the spaghetti westerns of Clint Eastwood that would follow some two decades later.  It's amazing in that it's told almost in real time.  Each ticking clock shown carries through the actual elapsed as we watch.  The visuals are tilted away from the traditional mythology and towards a much more realistic.  Cooper's spare acting style is perfect. It is a modern western long before the modern western took center stage.  The story did not involve chases, action and other western standards.  Nominated for 7 Academy Awards it took 4 home including Cooper for Best Actor.

AFI listed this as the #2 Greatest Western of All Time.  I'd easily bump it to the top of the list.

Rating - **** Recommended (and if you're into Westerns this is a definite ***** Own It)