XDA

I finally got to a movie after what seems like months and took in the new Liam Neeson vehicle, Taken, which is sort of a cross between Frantic and Death Wish. Here are some of the media myths it apparently proudly displays:

This month's international bad guys, the Albanians, in Paris are hugely brave but horrible bad shots, which is the key to all movie bad guy organization. They instantly respond to any gunshot with overwhelming force, or what would be overwhelming force if they could hit the broad side of a barn with their pistols and HK MP5s. The good guy mows them down, but no one takes cover, they just keep coming, until they are all dead, the energizer bunnies of ineffectual evil.

Once the good guy is in a normal car, he's slower than Christmas if chased (faster than the wind if chasing) and is impervious to bullets. The actual protection of safety glass and a 1/16th inch of steel is nil to even pistol ammunition. The bad guys can drive up next to the hero, spray the hero with automatic fire and nothing at all happens other than holes in the car doors and windows.

No matter how well you hide your personal gun in your home, the good guy will find it and disarm it (and you will not check the clip and chamber) until the good guy splashes your cartridges on the table in front of you. Even though you know your pistol is empty, you will click on the empty chamber (and often will throw the empty gun, although that did not happen this time).

Any former American spy is impervious to arrest; apparently, the local police go blind or the hero becomes invisible just after committing a crime out in the open in front of many witnesses.

If the bad guys want to kill someone, they would be well served to use the mafia method and put two in the back of the head. Putting it off to drowning, asphyxiation, or any method which requires close personal contact only allows the good guy to survive, get his hands on you, and catastrophically turn the tables.

If there is one piece of equipment which, if it fails, will free the hero, that one piece of equipment will fail, at the worst possible time for the bad guys.

You cannot hide from a former spy.

And here are some truths lefties love to ignore, which the movie unconsciously reveals:

Children are fatuous, careless, deceitful beings whose affection can be bought by expensive baubles.

Ex-wives are cold, vindictive shrews who seek to place the blame for all failure on you yet who will quickly turn to you for help when something they championed goes wrong.

The replacement husband is more successful than you but worthless in a crisis.

The world is a dangerous place, especially for fatuous, careless, deceitful beings whose affection can be bought by expensive baubles, or a pretty face.

Criminals always ignore with impunity the gun restrictions of the country they live in.

CIA operatives, with the exception of Valerie Plame, who flutters her faux victimhood as helplessly as any 19th Century damsel in distress fluttered her handkerchief, are pretty dangerous people.

Torture always works to get valid, important information.

Execution of truly bad people seems more like justice than revenge.

Take the head shot; it always works.

Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori.

Labels: Taken; Hollywood Myths