 Tagline: They took his daughter. He'll take their lives. We've Taken action to the extreme in this thrill-packed 2-Disc Extended Edition with hard-hitting added footage, plus in-depth commentaries, revealing featurettes and more! When his estranged teenage daughter (Maggie Grace) is kidnapped in Paris, a former spy (Neeson) sets out to find her at any cost. Relying on his special skills, he tracks down the ruthless gang that abducted her and launches a one-man war to bring them to justice and rescue his daughter. Storyline: Seventeen year-old Kim is the pride and joy of her father Bryan Mills. Bryan is a retired agent who left the Central Intelligence Agency to be near Kim in California. Kim lives with her mother Lenore and her wealthy stepfather Stuart. Kim manages to convince her reluctant father to allow her to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda. When the girls arrive in Paris they share a cab with a stranger named Peter, and Amanda lets it slip that they are alone in Paris. Using this information an Albanian gang of human traffickers kidnaps the girls. Kim barely has time to call her father and give him information. Her father gets to speak briefly to one of the kidnappers and he promises to kill the kidnappers if they do not let his daughter go free. The kidnapper wishes him "good luck," so Bryan Mills travels to Paris to search for his daughter and her friend. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, May 13, 2009 -- I would sacrifice anything for her. Taken delivers the goods that Action fans crave. It's really as simple as that. The film features everything, and more, that lesser, "play-it-safe" Action pictures like the Transporter films seem afraid of. While not a groundbreaking film by any means, Taken hearkens back to the glory days of the Action picture when movies like Die Hard and Commando took a no-holds-barred approach and wholly embraced the genre, the only difference with Taken being its slicker, more modern veneer. Despite the film's ending never really being in question or the fact that plenty of convenient plot contrivances and conveniences aid Bryan's (Liam Neeson, Batman Begins) quest to find his kidnapped daughter Kim (Maggie Grace, "Lost"), the film's relentless, uncompromising action, raw emotion, rapid-fire pace, and singular focus drive Taken to heights the Action genre rarely ascends to in the 21st century. Former government operative Bryan Mills (Neeson), highly trained in the arts of survival, intelligence gathering, and self-defense, lives a solitary life after his divorce. Bryan obsesses over the well-being of his daughter, Kim (Grace), and enjoys only the company of his former team members. When Kim requests from her father permission to travel to France with a friend, Bryan eventually agrees -- and learns that her trip will take her all over the continent, a fact she failed to disclose. Bryan asks that his daughter check in with him everyday and keep him informed of her itinerary. When Kim arrives in France, she and her friend are greeted by a seemingly friendly stranger with whom they share a taxi to their temporary home. Later that day, while on the phone with her father, Kim witnesses her friend being kidnapped and she, too, is taken moments later, but not before Bryan is able to listen to the events unfold. When it is revealed that he has but 96 hours before his daughter will vanish forever, Bryan quickly travels to France to find his daughter -- and severely punish anyone involved with her kidnapping. Aside from its incredible and nearly incessant action, a key factor in Taken's success stems from its wonderful set-up and ability to place viewers in the protagonist's shoes, painting him as a sympathetic character and thereby making his loss and subsequent quest to retrieve his daughter an undertaking that emotionally invests and, by the end, drains the audience. Neeson's depiction of a father who places his daughter above all else -- even when she has been "taken" from him through his divorce -- further enhances the drama, the dilemma, and the action by showing him to be not just a father in title only (much as Kim's stepfather seems to be) but one that would sacrifice everything for her and her well-being. He not only cares for her, but obsesses over her, not necessarily micro-managing her life but desperately in need of involvement to ensure her happiness and safety. To Bryan, fatherhood means not providing a luxurious estate and a horse as a birthday present, but opening his heart and wanting nothing more than to be a part of her life. Taken easily delivers a wonderful set-up that establishes its characters as well as most any Action movie ever has, lending an enormous amount of weight, urgency, and raw emotion to the blistering violence that follows. Most importantly, however, Taken delivers intense action throughout the "unrated" cut of the film. Shootouts, car chases, foot chases, and hand-to-hand combat -- it's all here, expertly staged, appropriately violent, and a blast to watch and cheer on. Few films ever manage to paint the enemy as completely unscrupulous and worthy of their demise as Taken, and for every one that is shot, smashed, punched, sliced, or otherwise physically harmed, a sense of exhilaration and satisfaction emanates from the screen in the witness of their deaths, a feeling rarely captured on film, and most recently seen in Denzel Washington's Man on Fire. Thematically, Taken compares well to that Tony Scott film, but stylistically, they are two very separate entities that both manage to capture the imagination and get the blood pumping in different ways. Man on Fire takes on a gritty, grimy tone, reflected in both its main character and its visual appearance. Taken offers a sleeker, more refined look. Its lead character is not a drunkard but his approach to retrieving his daughter is no less intense than that seen in Man on Fire. Both films take a no-nonsense, unrelenting, sometimes grotesque, but incredibly gut-wrenching and, ultimately, wholly satisfying tone that placates both the need for well-scripted and thoughtful Drama and heart-pounding, well-staged, and violent Action. Finally, Taken features a tour-de-force performance from Liam Neeson. The actor blends raw emotion with a stoicism that reflects his training. Though hurting on the inside, he remains steadfast, self-assured, level, and strong on the outside, never letting any emotion other than anger loose, and allowing nothing but his hardened and deadly skills to take on his enemies. The scene featuring his telephone conversation with his daughter, in the midst of the kidnapping, reflects his very essence. He remains quick on his feet, falling not apart but into his training, remaining in a state of calm while doing everything in his immediate power to glean any and all information about the perpetrators as possible. The scene plays out as believable in the context of the character's military background and unquestioned love and concern for his daughter, another reflection of the quality of the film's introductory scenes. The remainder of the cast delivers performances that don't match up to that turned in by Neeson, but they work as well as they need to in the context of the film. Perhaps the film's most pleasant surprise is Holly Valance, a young actress portraying a pop diva who makes appearances at both the beginning and end of the film. Director Pierre Morel's Taken returns the Action picture to a level of excellence rarely seen in the genre. Violent and emotionally disturbing yet satisfying, the film features a simple story of both unconditional love and the lengths a man will go to save his most valuable possession. Though the film benefits from some cinematic contrivances and conveniences, neither the story nor the action suffer as a result. Taken should satisfy longtime Action fans much the same way Die Hard and Man on Fire did. 20th Century Fox's Blu-ray presentation of Taken is a knockout. The studio rarely disappoints when it comes to delivering top-notch Blu-ray presentations of new-release films, and Taken is no exception. Featuring stellar picture and sound, along with a decent supplemental section, Taken should be a major hit on Blu-ray, and rightfully so. Highly recommended. Cast Notes: Liam Neeson (Bryan Mills), Famke Janssen (Lenore), Leland Orser (Sam), Radivoje Bukvic (Anton [as Rasha Bukvic]), Mathieu Busson (Undercover agent), Holly Valance (Sheerah), Katie Cassidy (Amanda), Xander Berkeley (Stuart), Nicolas Giraud (Peter), Maggie Grace (Kim), Jon Gries (Casey), Marc Amyot (Pharmacist), Rubens Hyka (Leka), Arben Bajraktaraj (Marko), Camille Japy (Isabelle). IMDb Rating (05/13/09): 8.0/10 from 65,744 users
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
