Father Knows Best

I find movies like Liam Neeson's "Taken" better than Sunday School. Think about it; there's more truth bundled in this revenge drama than in most church teaching today: 1) there are evil disgusting people in the world, 2) when someone has the courage to put them down like the dogs they are, we should celebrate that strength 3) fathers have an instinct for the danger facing their children and that instinct should be honored, 4) teenage girls shouldn't be traveling in foreign capitals by themselves 5) when bureaucratic functionaries value their jobs over justice, they become part of the evil they claim to be fighting, and 6) Islam--with its "one morality for us, another for the Kuffars"-- doesn't exactly make for a happy sing-along at the U.N. peoples' choir.

People of faith hear the words of the Psalmist (58:10): "The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked," but there is a disconnect when it is played out either in reality, or in film. (I'm not sure if fellow theater goers appreciated my whispered cheer--'send the little jackal back to hell!') After all, it's probably a good thing that we have a sense of mercy, written on our hearts, or we would all be something like the savage Druids and Celts and Aztecs and Animists from which we descend. However, there is also a false mercy operating in our own generation that keeps Charlie Manson eating meals and reading fan mail in prison. Obviously, we need to be a nation of laws, not of men, but the sort of human vermin that kidnap travelers for sale into the harem-trade know that very proceduralism works in their favor. A public firing squad for the authors of these cartels--and they do exist--would be good for the soul of the nation, and for the safety of international travelers.

Granted, I don't quite buy Liam Neeson as an American. I think the story would have been equally effective if he had played an IRA partisan, retired from the troubles, and brought back into the fray by the theft of his daughter. I could also do without car chases, and, of course, the plot is full of the outright improbable, but in a generation given to mutant special powers, it's nice to see a morality play chronicled with more probable human weapons--knives, slamming doors, guns, hammers, and electrical voltage liberally applied.

Apparently, the film is making more money than the producers thought it would.

Is it any wonder?