Taken - Spoiler

Taken (2008)

Director: Pierre Morel

Writers: Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen

Starring: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace and Famke Janssen

Warning Spoiler Alert

“I don’t know who you are, but if you don’t let my daughter go. I will find you. I will kill you.”

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a CIA operative who retired to spend more time with his beloved eighteen-year-old daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace).

The film opens with a grainy home video of a young girl and her family. The scene changes to Bryan awaking on a sofa with a photograph of his daughter in hand. Bryan is driving his car when he enters a small electrical store and buys a home karaoke machine; he takes it home and raps it in a brightly coloured child-like wrapping paper. He turns up at a large house with music thumping and people everywhere; it’s the scene of his daughter’s birthday.

He gives his daughter the present and she looks pleased with what is inside, her mother and Bryans ex wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen) on the other hand has a look of dismay, Stuart enters and the audience are introduced to Kim’s stepfather who is obviously rich and owns this large estate, he calls over to Kim shouting happy birthday and brings in a large well groomed horse, Kim squeals with excitements, Bryan looks like he’s been outspent.

Bryan leaves the party and goes homes, where there’s a knock at the door, three men stand at the door who are introduced to the audience as Bryans friends and also CIA agents, They drink bear and play cards and grill Bryan about his early retirement, he explains how it was to be closer to his daughter and explains the events of that day, They convince him to do one last job, he reluctantly agrees.

The job is a gig, Bryan and his 3 friends are escorting a pop-diva from her car to the dressing rooms, fans are screaming on his busy scene, and Bryan is told he is the one who is escorting the pop singer inside her dressing room. While being primed Bryan tell her how lovely she sounds and that his daughter wants to be a singer, she replies by telling him the best thing for his daughter is not to become a singer, with that the singer journeys to the stage. Kim rings and Bryan explains he is at the singer’s concert doing security work; Kim is impressed and invites him to lunch the following day.

As the singer leaves the stage and Bryan escorts her to her car, the fans break the barriers and charge for her, a man with a knife jumps in front; Bryan shows off his CIA training and beats the man to a pulp. The singer and Bryan run into the car, the singer breaks down into tears.

Once the singer is safe in her hotel, she explains that as thanks she will arrange a meeting for his daughter and her singing coach and she will pay for all the lessons as its least she could do.

The following day Bryan meets his daughter for lunch and much to Bryans dismay his belated wife is sitting at the table with Kim, Conversation turns straight to the point of the meeting, Amanda, Kim’s best friends has invited Kim to Paris for a number of weeks to stay with her cousins, Bryan immediately says no, Kim’s exits in tears and the form that he has to sign as she is a minor is left with him alone in the café.

That following day he turns up at the large house and Kim answers the door, Bryan gives her the signed form and she is ecstatic, he gives her a list of rules and that he is the one driving her to the airport.

The scene changes to Kim and Bryan driving to the airport, Bryan is giving his daughter the dos and don’ts, they arrive at the airport and Bryan sends his daughter away.

Kim and Amanda arrive in the French airport, they are taking photos outside when a man introducing himself as Peter, asks if they want a photo taken together, he takes the camera phone and takes the picture, he then asks if they are getting in a cab, they reply yes and he says that it is very expensive and if they want to cab share, they agree and arrive at their apartment, Kim lets slip that they are here on their own, so know peter knows they are young, on their own and where they are staying.

Peter walks away on the phone saying he’s found two girls, he gives the person on the opposite end of the line, that they are roughly 18, where they are staying and that they are alone.

Amanda tells Kim that her cousins are actually away for the whole period of time that they are staying here, Kim is immediately distressed at this new information.

When they enter the apartment, Amanda exclaims that they have the whole top floor. Amanda put son load music, Kim’s realises that she has had many missed calls form her father and goes the opposite side of the building to ring her dad and get away from the loud music. While on the phone to her dad, Kim sees three men enter the building opposite her, where Amanda is; the men kidnap Amanda and look like they are searching for Kim.

Kim frantically asks her father for help, he tells her to enter the next room and go under the bed, he then tells her that the next part will be the hardest, she’s going to get kidnapped, but she has to shout out everything about the kidnappers appearance and anything noticeable about him, in a high suspense scene the kidnappers enter the room and speak a foreign language, Kim and the audience think the kidnappers have missed her when she is violently dragged out of under the bed, Kim screams and shouts out the information.

Bryan is still on the phone when one of the kidnappers pick up the phone, Bryan tells him “I don’t know who you are, but if you don’t let my daughter go. I will find you. I will kill you.” the kidnapper replies “Good luck”.

Bryan had recorded the telephone call and sends it to one of his CIA buddies to get it translated.

He then goes to Lenore’s house and tells them what has happened, Stuart asks if there is anything he can do, he asks for a flight to Paris an hour ago.

Bryan arrives in Paris with the information that he asked his CIA friend for, the kidnappers are Albanian and that they are big ‘bosses’.

Bryan breaks his way into the girls apartment and reviews the situation form the perspective if his daughter. Bryan finds the phone with the memory card intact, he develops the photos taken and in the reflection of the photos is peters face. Bryan travels to the airport and finds peter and a black guy performing the same trick on some other girls, Bryan confronts peter and beats him, the black guy steps in and Bryan beats him to a pulp, Bryan chases after Peter who runs into the road and gets torn apart by a high speeding lorry.

Bryan goes to a police station and follows a man down the street, turns out it is an old friends form the CIA, Jean Claude, Bryan explains his situation, Jean says its going to be difficult as there is so many Albanians in Paris, he also asked Bryan not to tear up Paris in trying to find his daughter, Bryan replies she will tear down the Eiffel tower if he has to, Jean give shim a starting location, The Albanian men are sex traffickers.

The scene changes to a construction site, a line of men is queuing up with small pieces of card with a number on it. Bryan queues and gets a card, he goes inside, it’s a brothel, Bryan frantically pulls open the curtains to see if he can find his daughter here, she snot there but a girl is wearing the denim jacket that his daughter was last seen in. He beats up the man who was trying to sleep with her and grabs the girl, he runs out with many men chasing and firing at him, gas canisters explode and its really ‘dramatic’.

The girl explains a nice girl gave her the jacket, the girl tells Bryan where to possibly find her.

He goes into the location and introduces himself as Jean Claude, giving them the business card that he got from his former friend when they first met.  They take him up into a kitchen where the Albanians are seated.  He pretends to negotiate a ‘new rate’ for police protection/silence and they give him some money after some wrangling.  He sees a tattoo on a man’s hand that is similar to the one that Kim screamed out and as they’re talking, one man says, “Good Luck.”  It’s the same voice from the tape.

Bryan looks around, scoping out the men and asks the man if he recognizes him, the man doesn’t.  Bryan then starts beating and shooting every Albanian in site, only stunning the man who helped kidnap his daughter, but killing everyone else either with his fists or guns.  After all the Albanians upstairs and downstairs are dead, he starts looking through the rooms. 20 girls tied to beds, drugged.  He finds Amanda; she’s dead with vomit on her face, a needle and bloody cotton swab at the side of the bed where someone gave her too much.  Kim was nowhere to be found.

Bryan returns downstairs and finds the stunned Albanian, he tie shim to a chair and electrocutes him, till he finds out his daughter was sold to Saint Claire.

After Bryan visits Jean Claude’s house and shoots (flesh wound only) jeans wife in order to get information from Claude about Saint Claire. Claude give shim a location.

Bryan gets into the party Saint Claire is holding in his estate by presenting Jean’s ID with his picture on it.  He walks in and finds Saint Claire going into a special elevator.  He kills the guard and goes down the elevator.  Looking around, he sees that there are all small rooms with men bidding on the girls being shown on stage.  A waiter comes and he kills the waiter, taking the champagne and going into the booth where an Arab is bidding on a woman and serves him champagne.  The light is very dim.

Kim is the last one shown, a specialty.  Bryan pulls a gun on the man and makes him win the bid.  As he escorts the man out of the booth, a man hits Bryan over the top of the head, making him pass out.

Bryan wakes up, his hands chained to a water pipe above him and Saint Claire asking who he is.  Bryan says that he’s Kim’s father and Saint Claire says it’s all business and tells his men to kill him quietly as he leaves.  Bryan rips the pipe down, spraying the men with hot steam and kills them all, including the guard that Saint Claire sent down to see what was making so much noise.

After Bryan has killed all the men, he goes and finds Saint Claire in the elevator and shoots him in the arm, asking where his daughter is.  Then he shoots him in the other arm, and then in the leg.  The man says she’s at a pier on a boat.  Saint Claire says its just business and Bryan empties the clip into his body before stalking out.

At the pier, Bryan sees Kim getting loaded onto the boat and the large yacht sail away down the river.  He gets into his car and starts racing it, trying to catch up.  After some insane driving, he gets to a bridge, just in time to jump onto the yacht.

This is supposedly the climax of the film, Bryan jumps on the boat and sneaks past a few guards when he is finally spotted, he kills just about every guard and only getting shot himself once, he breaks into the room where Kim is being held, he fights one last guard where Bryan nearly gets killed himself but obviously he survives and the final guard is dead, he then shoots the buyer and reclaims his daughter.

The seen changes to a wild contract, they are at the airport back in America coming through the gates back home, Kim runs to hug her mother and stepfather.  Lenore thanks Bryan and gives him a long hug. 

The film ends with Kim and Bryan standing outside a door.  The singer from the beginning answers the door with her coach in the background near a piano.  She looks at Kim and asks if she wants to be a singer and Kim nods.

This film is high intensity suspense throughout, the key thriller moments are the kidnapping, the construction scene, the storming of the Albanian building, the Saint Claire party and finally the yacht. These are all key thriller moments in the film as they are pact with suspense, tension and the mystery of is Bryan going to survive and find his daughter.

The locations of this film are perfect for a thriller film as the majority is filmed in large cities, this is because thriller films are usually set in Adult Worlds, also the characters are all either CIA operatives, Kidnappers or powerful organizations, which are very typical of a thriller film. Many of the scenes contrast each other as some the lighting is dark usually build suspense as when the scene is dark it is when Bryans life is in danger or his daughters life is, then when he has the upper hand the light is bright.

From looking at reviews and my personal opinion this film satisfies the action and plot of thriller audiences but many people including myself feel the climax on the yacht was far too short as the film is building up to the climax for over and hour then the climax lasts for what? 20 minutes. It was slightly disappointing but it  is still an amazing film pact with high intensity scenes, interesting plot and Liam Neeson at his best.

FILM RATING : 4 ¾ /5