Taken (film)

Taken
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Pierre Morel
Produced by	Luc Besson
Written by	Luc Besson Robert Mark Kamen
Starring	Liam Neeson Maggie Grace Leland Orser Jon Gries David Warshofsky Katie Cassidy Holly Valance Famke Janssen
Music by	Nathaniel Mechaly
Cinematography	Michel Abramowicz
Editing by	Frédéric Thoraval
Studio	EuropaCorp M6 Films Grive Productions Canal+ TPS Star M6 All Pictures Media Wintergreen Productions
Distributed by	EuropaCorp Distribution (Worldwide/France) 20th Century Fox (International)
Release date(s)	27 February 2008 (2008-02-27) (France) 30 January 2009 (2009-01-30) (United States)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	France
Language	English
Budget	$25 million
Box office	$226,830,568

Taken is a 2008 French action thriller film co-written and produced by Luc Besson, starring Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace and Famke Janssen. The screenplay was written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, and directed by Pierre Morel. Neeson plays a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative who sets about tracking down his daughter after she is kidnapped by human traffickers while travelling in France. The sequel, Taken 2, was released on 3 October 2012.

Taken was a box office success and received mixed reviews upon its release. Numerous media outlets have cited the film as a turning point in Neeson's career that redefined the actor as a successful action film star.

Plot

Former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency operative Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) tries to have a closer relationship with his teenage daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). She lives with her mother, Lenore (Famke Janssen), and her wealthy stepfather, Stuart (Xander Berkeley), in California. While working as security with former colleagues, Bryan saves pop star Sheerah (Holly Valance) from an assailant after a concert. Sheerah, grateful, agrees to tutor Kim after Bryan says she aspires to be a singer. Kim asks Bryan for permission to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy). Bryan balks at the two girls travelling alone, but relents when Lenore complains that he is overprotective. He gives Kim an international cellphone, and makes her promise to call every day. At Los Angeles International Airport, he learns that the girls are not staying in Paris, but are following U2 during their European tour.

Arriving in Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, Kim and Amanda meet Peter (Nicolas Giraud), a scout for a kidnapping gang, who offers to share a cab with them. At the apartment, Kim discovers that Amanda's cousins, with whom they are staying, are in Spain. While talking to Bryan on the phone in the bathroom, Kim sees Amanda being kidnapped by intruders. Bryan instructs her to go to the nearest room and hide under a bed. He explains that when the men find her, she has to shout out their physical descriptions. Kim is pulled out from under the bed, and she complies with her father's instructions before the phone is found and destroyed.

Bryan informs Stuart and Lenore of their daughter's kidnapping. Bryan's former colleague Sam (Leland Orser) tells him that based on the recording, Kim has probably been taken by an Albanian human trafficking ring that has recently begun abducting female tourists. He also says that if she is not rescued within ninety-six hours, she will likely never be found. Bryan travels to Paris, and finds Peter at the airport attempting to lure another tourist. After a confrontation and chase, Peter is hit and killed by a passing truck before Bryan can interrogate him.

Bryan then seeks out Jean-Claude (Olivier Rabourdin), a former French intelligence officer who now works a desk job. Jean-Claude is relatively unhelpful but does direct Bryan to a district where an East European gang are prostituting women. Jean-Claude afterwards has the police put a tail on Bryan and soon warns Bryan that his vigilante methods will result in him getting deported, but Bryan avoids arrest. Bryan follows one gangster to a brothel at a construction site, where he finds a girl wearing Kim's jacket. He fights off the brothel guards and escapes with the girl. After the girl awakens, she gives Bryan enough information about the house where she met Kim to allow him to find it.

Bryan confronts the Albanians, and identifies the kidnapper on the phone as Marko (Arben Bajraktaraj). He wounds Marko and kills the others. Searching the house, he finds several captive teens, including Amanda, who is dead from an apparent overdose. In the basement of the house, Bryan straps Marko into a makeshift electric chair and tortures him into divulging Kim's location; as a virgin, she was very valuable on the black market, and was sold to an auctioneer named Patrice Saint-Clair (Gérard Watkins). Bryan leaves Marko to die, and visits Jean-Claude at home. Having deduced that Jean-Claude is taking kickbacks from the kidnappers, he extracts Saint-Clair's home address.

Bryan infiltrates Saint-Clair's mansion, where a large party is the facade for an auction of girls in the basement. Bryan forces a Middle Eastern bidder to purchase his daughter, but is captured after they exit the room. Bryan frees himself and kills Saint-Clair's henchmen. He forces Saint-Clair to reveal where Kim has been taken before killing him. Bryan races the luxury yacht owned by Raman (Nabil Massad), a sheikh, and boards it. There, he kills the boat's guards, confronts the sheikh in his boudoir, and shoots him in the head and rescues his daughter. They return to the U.S. where she is reunited with her mother and stepfather. Afterward, Bryan takes Kim to see Sheerah for her first singing lesson.

Cast

• Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills
• Maggie Grace as Kim Mills
• Famke Janssen as Lenore "Lenny" Mills
• Xander Berkeley as Stuart
• Leland Orser as Sam
• Jon Gries as Casey
• David Warshofsky as Bernie
• Katie Cassidy as Amanda
• Olivier Rabourdin as Jean-Claude Pitrel
• Arben Bajraktaraj as Marko
• Holly Valance as Sheerah
• Camille Japy as Isabelle
• Nicolas Giraud as Peter
• Gérard Watkins as Patrice Saint-Clair
• Nabil Massad as Raman the sheikh

Production

The film was produced by Luc Besson's EuropaCorp.

Release

Critical reception

Taken received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 58% based on reviews from 168 critics and reports a rating average of 5.8 out of 10, with the reported consensus: "Taken is undeniably fun with slick action, but is largely a brainless exercise." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 50 based on 31 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Time said the film "has nothing more on its mind than dozens of bad guys getting beat up and another one turned into instant roadkill."^{[citation needed]} The Washington Post described the film as "a satisfying as grimly professional as its efficient hero" and likened the action to the Jason Bourne series.^{[citation needed]} Variety described the film as a "kick ass, pedal-to-the-metal actioner [...] that wisely doesn't give the viewer any time to ponder the string of unlikely coincidences [...] the film has the forward, devil-may-care momentum of a Bond film on steroids."

The Los Angeles Times described "the premise of 'Taken,' a brisk and violent action programmer that can't help being unintentionally silly at times [...] Obviously, 'Taken' is not the kind of action film to spend much time worrying about its pedestrian script or largely indifferent acting, so it's fortunate to have Neeson in the starring role." Bryan Mills is characterised as "relentless attack machine who is impervious to fists, bullets and fast-moving cars, he uses a variety of martial skills to knock out more opponents than Mike Tyson and casually kill those he doesn't KO."

Box office

On its opening day in the United States, the film grossed $9.4 million, scoring the best opening day ever for Super Bowl weekend. It went on to make $24.7 million during its opening weekend, which was the second highest Super Bowl Opening weekend, at the time, behind Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour ($31.1 million). The film grossed $145,000,989 in the U.S. and Canada, and $81,829,579 overseas, for a worldwide total of $226,830,568.

Home media

Taken was released on DVD in May 2009. As of March 2011, 4,426,766 copies of the film had been sold generating US$68,544,181 in sales.

Versions

Pierre Morel stated that the film's United States distributor, 20th Century Fox, forced him to re-edit this film for its U.S. theatrical release so it could receive a PG-13 rating. Later, Fox released the original version as an "Extended Cut" on DVD and Blu-ray. The "Extended Cut" has more violence that was cut from the U.S. theatrical release.

Memorable quotes

Liam Neeson: "I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for a ransom, I can tell you that I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long period, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that will be the end of it. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

Sequel

Main article: Taken 2

In November 2010, Fox officially announced that Europacorp would produce a sequel directed by Olivier Megaton. The film was subsequently released in France on 3 October 2012, with Neeson, Janssen and Grace reprising their roles from the first film.

Fraud case

In 2011, a self-proclaimed counter-terrorism expert who claimed the film was based on a real-life incident that killed his daughter was convicted of wire fraud. William G. Hillar, who pretended to be a retired Green Beret colonel, claimed to have spent more than 12 years lecturing US government agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation on security issues. However, records revealed he had only been a radar operator in the Coast Guard Reserve between 1962 and 1970, and had never been in the US Army. Nevertheless his website claimed Taken was based on events involving him and his family. Hillar, who admitted the charges, was sentenced to 500 hours of community service at Maryland State Veteran Cemetery. He also agreed to repay $171,000 in speaking fees that he had received from various organizations to which he had presented himself as an expert in terrorism and human trafficking.

In other media

• The twentieth episode of the tenth season of Family Guy entitled "Leggo My Meg-O" is based on Taken.
• Taken is referenced in the John Sage song "Come With Me (I'll Be Your Liam Neeson)" with the line "If you ever get taken/I'll be your Liam Neeson."

External links

• Taken at the Internet Movie Database
• Taken at AllRovi