Taken (2009)

Directed by Pierre Morel

Written by Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen
Cast Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Leland Orser, Xander Berkeley, Katie Cassidy

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0936501/

Reviewed by Sari

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What if you are a retired CIA spy, a loving father and ready to help your child whenever possible? What if your child happens to be an adventurous 17-year old girl, ready to explore the world, all by herself? Well, it means that perhaps your help is needed sooner or later, especially Liam Neeson being in the leading role in this fast paced movie.

In Taken Bryan (Liam Neeson) is this ex-spy, living modest life close to his 17-year old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), who herself lives with her mom Lenore (Famke Janssen) and stepdad Stuart (Xander Berkeley), getting everything she wants and having a very luxurious lifestyle. Bryan doesn't necesserily agree on her daughter's lavish lifestyle and all the freedom her daughter has, but tries to adjust as well as he can. As for him the most important thing is just to be close to his daughter, after all those years serving the country and not being able to spend a lot of time with his family.

Suddenly Kim decides to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy) and Bryan gets very frustrated and even a little paranoid about this idea. He is afraid that she ends up getting in trouble travelling with no adult supervision, but reluctantly sings the papers that free her to go abroad, being under aged. He gives Kim a cell phone and asks her to keep in contact with him all the times, fearing for her safety. Girls have just arrived to Paris and Bryan is on the cell phone with Kim when the inevitable happens. Both girls are being kidnapped by Albanian human smugglers and Bryan is witnessing all this by the phone.

He contacts his friend Sam (Leland Orser) and finds out about the Albanian connection and is immediately on a a plane, on his way to Paris. This leads to a hunt where desperate father is after the criminals trying to figure out their next steps to find her daughter and he doesn't hesitate to use all his power and all the possible ways to rescue Kim.

This movie has all the parameters needed to work like a good action movie should. There is a lot of exciting moments, some pretty intense chasing scenes and the person who makes this film even more interesting is of course Liam Neeson and his character Bryan. Neeson is just wonderful to watch on screen. There is a man who is always so humble, yet extremely talented and can play any role, any time, making it his own thing.

The storyline is not perhaps the strongest possible and at some point it gets pretty obvious what is going to happen next and how the story is going to end. But Neeson keeps the audience in excitement and it is quite obvious to see, that the main responsibility for this movie to succeed lays on Neeson's hands.

Reminds me of those good, old 90s action films with a lot of chasing, excitement and a strong, charismatic person in a leading role. Sometimes that is all it takes to have a good movie experience. So enjoy! I sure did!