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Review

Taken

  • Directed by Pierre Morel
  • Starring Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Xander Berkeley, Katie Cassidy and Olivier Rabourdin

The director of District B13 brings us the story of a father who will do anything to ensure the safe return of his daughter.

Bryan Mills (Neeson) is an ex-CIA agent who has retired to Los Angeles to try and make amends with his 17 yr old daughter, who he wasn’t always around for as she was growing up. Daughter Kim (Grace) seems agreeable to the idea, but Bryan’s ex-wife Lenore (Janssen) obviously considers this a case of too little, too late and maintains an icy arms’ distance whenever he’s around. Bryan brings a gift to Kim’s birthday party, only to be shown up by step-father Stuart (Berkeley), who gives her a horse.

Bryan supplements his retirement with a gig shepherding a singer to a gig with some other buddies from the service and gets the chance to use his skills when she’s attacked by a crazed fan armed with a knife.

Kim wants to meet with Bryan for lunch, which he considers a good sign until Lenore arrives with her, and they hit him up for permission for Kim to leave the country on a trip to Paris to visit museums with her friend Amanda (Cassidy). Bryan must sign off on this because he’s her biological father, and he reluctantly agrees, giving her a satellite phone with which to check in to him every night. When he drops her at the airport he notices a map poking out of Kim’s bag detailing a much more involved travel schedule, and when he confronts Lenore, she admits that the girls are following U2 on their tour, set up by she and Stuart. Against his better judgment, Bryan lets her go.

The girls are off the plane for 5 minutes when cute French guy Peter offers to share their cab to split expenses, and they are dropped off at Amanda’s cousin’s flat. Peter offers to take them to a party later that night and leaves, calling in their address and description on his cell as he walks away. Kim is surprised to find that Amanda’s cousins are out of the country and they have the whole floor to themselves, so she take a call from Bryan in another part of the house when he calls to make sure they arrived safely.

This places her in another part of the house when she sees men burst in and grab Amanda in the living room. As she describes this to Bryan, he talks her through where to hide, and then what to do as the men grab her, namely shout out any type of details or descriptions of them that he can use to track them down. Bryan immediately falls back into his old life, recording the conversation to be used later to track down any kind of clues he can. The guys grab her and one of them speaks to Bryan on the phone, here he tells them that if they leave her alone, he won’t pursue them, but if they take her, he’ll find them and kill them.

Good luck. The guy says, and smashes the phone.

Exploiting his CIA contacts and Stuart’s wealth, he begins gathering data on the men in the recording, their accents and backgrounds, as well as a private plane into Paris to allow him to bring the equipment that might raise a few eyebrows on a commercial flight. He reconnects with Jean-Claude (Rabourdin), an old friend who has been promoted from the field to a desk job, who offers to help him as much as he can without making trouble for himself.

Bryan visits the flat, uses the smashed phone’s memory card to retrieve a photo taken at the airport that shows a reflection of the man taking it, but Peter ends up dead when Bryan pursues him. Taking a different tactic, he employs a translator and contrives a scuffle with a pimp in the red light district so he can place a listening device on him and have the translator listen in and feed him information about what they say. This leads to a construction site and a stable of drugged up women forced into prostitution, one of whom has his daughter’s jacket. Bryan kills his way out with this drugged up girl in tow, on the desperate chance that she may be able to lead him to the next clue to his daughter’s whereabouts.

This film is equal parts typical 80’s action film (as far as being filled with evil foreigners), and half modern era Bourne-style espionage thriller, and it’s a worthwhile mix. I really loved the fact that there weren’t a bunch of red herrings and double-crosses, just an angry father who is willing to kill his way through Paris to find his daughter, no matter where the trail leads him. I’m a sucker for a revenge film, and this one definitely pays off.

The fight scenes are well shot, and the car chases aren’t too shabby either, this is an enjoyable little action flick, no more, no less, and should satisfy any fans of said genre.

Give it a look.

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About The Author

Kingmob

Kingmob has been spending his time writing online reviews for the better part of two years and has nothing but the ability to speak about himself in the 3rd person to show for it. This review and others like it can be found at Big Suck Loser and you can read about the daily minutiae that drives him slowly mad and informs his useless opinions of pop culture at his blog, Dear Bastards.

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Article Information

  • Posted: Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
  • Author: Kingmob
  • Filed Under: Film, Review
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

2 Responses to “Taken”
  1. Trey Trey says:

    I saw this movie last night and I honestly don’t get what everyone sees in it. I found it to be just another average action movie that will end up being forgotten with time. Nothing about it grabbed me and I don’t think I’ll be seeing it ever again.

    February 1, 2009 at 11:29 am
  2. Bill Kingmob says:

    I understand what you mean about it being an average action film, but that’s what I was looking for, no overly convoluted plotting, just a simple revenge tale, which I think this gives you, wrapped up in a neat little package.

    Sorry you didn’t dig it as much as I did.

    February 1, 2009 at 2:15 pm

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