Taken and Torture

During the movie Taken, one of my friends had a strong negative reaction to the torture sequence. Not because it was graphic, or even disturbing. He had a political reaction. Afterwards he said he nearly walked out because “torture never works”. My other friends thought it odd that he picked out that element. After all, hiding behind a couch to avoid bullets never works, either. Other things that never work:

• Driving through a hail of bullets hoping the thin metal of your car will protect you.
• Finding conveniently placed explosive barrels to help cover your escape.
• Taking on a guy with a handgun using your super-duper fire extinguisher.
• Recognizing a voice you heard over an international line, based on two words.
• Shooting a middle-aged woman in the arm and saying “it’s just a flesh wound”.  Could be, could hit an artery.

But none of these things upset my friend.  He’s against the torture.  I went back and forth.  I’m also against torture, and also believe that it rarely gives reliable intelligence.  In fact, I don’t like the show, 24, in part because they constantly use torture to advance the plot in a way that seems to validate it as an intelligence gathering tool.

On the other hand, it’s just a movie.  We allow ourselves to enjoy movie protagonists who commit every kind of heinous act.  Torture doesn’t stand out over, say, murder, genocide, drug-dealing, or vampirism.  I thought people who got upset about the “torture quests” in WOTLK were idiots.  Still do.  So why shouldn’t this be the same?  I think that, had they really established the character they were shooting for, the father so blinded by rage and love for his daughter that he considers nothing else, it might have worked.  But in this case, Liam Neeson’s character never rises above a sort of everyman with talents.  So we don’t really separate his morals from our own.  So his choices are those of someone who we consider “moral”.

I do think my friend was being ridiculous, but I get just as ridiculous over other things, especially the off-screen hiding spot.  The hero walks into a room, looks around, and is suddenly jumped by a bad buy who was hiding off-camera.  It’s a good hiding place, because WE CAN’T SEE THEM.  The hero, though, shouldn’t be limited by the camera frame.  Liam Neeson does this once, walking out into a hall, apparently without noticing the bad guys, who then knock him out.  So they can hang him from a pipe.  This trope drives me crazy.  I haven’t walked out, yet, but then I’d have to explain and people would probably say “it’s just a movie.”