Movie Review: Taken

This year is starting off on the right foot with an action movie that manages to satisfy more than just a desire to see things get blown up. That movie is Taken, and it has set the bar fairly high.

Taken tells the story of Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson, Batman Begins, Chronicles of Narnia), a retired divorcee living in California. Bryan’s secret government employ limited quality time with his family, especially his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace, The Jane Austen Book Club), in the past, and now he is trying to make up for lost time. Though his daughter is more than happy to see her father more often, Bryan’s ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen, X-Men, The Wackness) is still holding a grudge, making family time quite difficult.

In an attempt to get closer, Bryan goes against his instincts as a father and as a former government agent, and allows his now 17 year old daughter to go to Paris with a friend. While checking in on her over the phone, Kim and her friend are kidnapped by an Albanian gang known for trafficking young female tourists. Full of rage, Bryan heads to Paris to find his daughter and make those responsible pay for their actions, by any means necessary.

Genre: Action/Adventure, Art/Foreign, Drama and Thriller

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Actors/Actresses: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Anjul Nigam, Goran Kostic, Holly Valance

Our Verdict:

Liam Neeson makes a surprisingly convincing one-man mean machine in Taken.