8 Things Bryan Mills Should’ve Gone to Prison for in the Latest Taken Movie

Bryan Mills in Tak3n III has big problems that he should have been arrested for in his latest movie.

Actually, I mostly hate all action movies that don’t include Yaegers or Kaiju as major characters. But I especially hate action movies in which the hero is clearly a sociopath who deserves to be doing serious prison time. That goes for your Takens, your Too Fast, Too Furiouses and your Gone in Sixty Secondses.

What would you call a person who jumps to the wrong side of the road in rush hour traffic doing 80 mph and wipes out a mini-van full of grade-schoolers? Probably not “protagonist”. But that’s what the heroes of these mindless, monotonous crap-fests do in every movie. Or, they would if any director had the guts to show what these kinds of wanton disregard for public safety would actually result in. I understand that these are just movies and, hey, even people who were D students have to have some form of entertainment. In fact, the only reason I saw Tak3n was because it was with the brain-injury group I take out from time to time. Let that sink in. It was the brain-injury guys who wanted to see Tak3n. If you like these kind of movies, do you have any such excuse.

Every time I see some 20-year old morons racing each other in and out of rush hour traffic on I-10 I have to ask myself, “Did a new Fast and Furious just come out? Or are these dullards just Tokyo Drifting for nostalgia sake?”

At the end of Tak3n, Liam Neeson meets with the lead detective who’d been pursuing him and they have a good laugh about all of his wacky shenanigans. The detective, played by Forrest Whitaker, even says, “You hacked into the LAPD computer system. I could charge you for that if I wanted to.”

THAT’S what you’d charge him with??? Not the multitude of violent felonies he also committed?

I made a partial list of all the things Bryan Mills did that should have had him looking at at least 20 years.

1.) Assaulting a Police Officer

Multiple times. In fact…

2.) Attempted Murder

What would you call it if a person who was under arrest cracked the arresting officer across the skull and then tossed him out of a car traveling at around 70 mph into traffic on the 110 freeway in Los Angeles? It’s important to note, I think, these weren’t crooked cops or connected to the “bad guys” in any way. Just regular police officers doing their job. And you’re just going to chuck him out on the freeway without there being any consequences?

3.) Destruction of Property

Both public AND private. At one point, Mills drives a police car down an elevator shaft which causes the entire building to explode. You still go to jail for that even if your excuse is “They Killed My Wife”.

3.) Auto Theft

Multiple counts.

4.) Breaking and Entering

Multiple.

5.) Setting off a Bomb at a School!

Yep, nothing lets you know who the good guy is like taking an explosive device to a school and setting it off…while the halls are full of students!!!

6.) Feloniously Pointing a Weapon

Again, multiple infractions.

7.) Murder

That’s not even counting killing “the bad guys”, although in the real world, straight-up executing a bad person is at least going to get you a slap on the wrist.
How about all the people who had to…HAD TO…have died in the wake of all of Liam Neeson’s revenge-induced carnage? I can’t watch these kinds of movies without thinking, “Gee I hoped there wasn’t an infant in that car that the hero just make the police car pursuing him slam into.” During Man of Steel, every time Superman would throw General Zod through a zip-code’s worth of sky-scrapers, all I could think was “Those poor people…at least they never even knew what hit them.” But, at least Superman was killing thousands of people to save billions (using the movie’s own internal logic). In a film like Tak3n, the hero is sacrificing, potentially, dozens of victims to save….well, no one, I guess. His wife was already dead so I guess it was just all about his revenge. Enjoy them if you like, but I guess I just expect my heroes to save more innocent people than he kills.

Also, don’t drive like a Fast and Furious movie. It doesn’t work out as well in real life. Ask Paul Walker.