Taken (film)
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| Taken | |
|---|---|
| File:Taken-poster-0.jpg North American theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Pierre Morel |
| Written by | Luc Besson Robert Mark Kamen |
| Produced by | Luc Besson |
| Starring | Liam Neeson Famke Janssen Maggie Grace Xander Berkeley Holly Valance Katie Cassidy |
| Cinematography | Michel Abramowicz |
| Edited by | Frédéric Thoraval |
| Music by | Nathaniel Mechaly |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox Europa Corp. |
Release dates | France: 27 February 2008 Australia: 14 August 2008 United Kingdom: 26 September 2008 United States: 30 January 2009 |
Running time | 93 min. 91 min. (US theatrical cut) |
| Country | France |
| Languages | French English Arabic |
| Budget | $45,000,000 |
| Box office | $122,414,787 |
Taken is a 2008 French thriller/action film starring Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, and Maggie Grace. It is based on a script by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, and directed by Pierre Morel. Neeson plays a retired CIA operative who sets about tracking down his teenage daughter after she is kidnapped by slave traders while traveling in Europe.
In the United States, this film have been re-edited to get PG-13 rating. [1]
Plot
Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a divorced, retired CIA operative,[1][2] most likely from the CIA's famed Special Activities Division.[3] His 17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) lives with his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) and her new wealthy husband Stuart (Xander Berkeley). Bryan is hired for security for a pop diva. After the show, the diva is attacked, but Bryan efficiently disables a knife-wielding assailant and gets her safely out of danger. Thankful, the diva expresses some interest in Bryan’s daughter and furnishes him with contacts to get Kim's career started.
The next day Bryan discovers that Kim wants to take a vacation to Paris with her friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy). Despite his initial concerns against the trip, Bryan agrees to allow it, later discovering that their actual plan is to travel round Europe following U2. Arriving in Paris, a young man named Peter (Nicolas Giraud) proposes to share a taxi with Kim and Amanda to the house where they are staying, and reports their address.
In the house, Kim receives a phone call from her father, which she answers in the bathroom. From the bathroom window she sees men entering the main room and abducting Amanda. Bryan is able to gain critical information about the kidnappers in the final moments after Kim is kidnapped by telling her to shout out everything about them that she notices. Briefly, Bryan talks to one of the kidnappers, warning him that unless Kim is released, he will pursue him and kill him, to which the kidnapper sardonically replies "good luck" before smashing the daughter's phone.
Exploiting his government contacts and the business connections of his ex-wife’s husband, Bryan travels to Paris to find her, informed that the kidnappers are Albanian sex traffickers and that he has only 96 hours to recover his daughter before she will disappear forever, and that the local leader is a man named Marko. He uses digital photos from the smashed remains of Kim's phone to locate Peter, who is killed by a truck while trying to escape.
He manages to save one of the kidnapped girls from the hands of the kidnappers and she discloses to him the address of the house where the Albanian kidnappers are holding them. He finds the house and several other girls including Amanda, dead from a forced overdose. Later, through torturing Marko by electric shock, Bryan ascertains that Kim was sold to a man named Patrice Saint-Clair, who showed interest in making a profit off of selling her because she is a virgin. He finds Saint-Clair by threatening Jean-Claude's wife, as Jean-Claude was receiving kickbacks for overlooking the trafficking.
By impersonating Jean-Claude, Bryan gains entry to the building where new girls are being sold, and secures entry to one of the buyers’ viewing booths. He sees his daughter from behind glass as she is displayed on the auction block. However, he is caught before he can engineer an escape for himself and his daughter. He manages to escape and find Saint-Clair, whom he kills after learning that his daughter is being taken by Arab clients. Bryan manages to follow the car his daughter is being taken in to see her being taken away on a yacht. He jumps on to the ship from a bridge and eliminates all the people inside, finally killing the client and freeing his daughter. Back in the US, Kim is reunited with her mother. Bryan introduces Kim to the diva he saved at the beginning of the film, having arranged an audition with her vocal coach.
Production
The movie is produced by Luc Besson's "Europacorp".[4]
Distribution
Taken premiered in France on February 27, 2008, with releases in the United Kingdom and United States following on September 26, 2008 and January 30, 2009, respectively.
Reception
On its opening day in the United States, the film grossed $9.4 million, scoring the best opening day ever for Super Bowl weekend.[5] As of February 10, 2009, the film had grossed $54,911,688 in the United States, and $123,962,475 worldwide.[6]
Dan Kois of the Washington Post described the film as "a satisfying thriller as grimly professional as its efficient hero" and likens the action to the Bourne series. Derek Elley of Variety described the film as a "dumb, pedal-to-the-metal actioner". He added, "Besson alum Pierre Morel ... wisely doesn't give the viewer any time to ponder the string of unlikely coincidences in the script by Besson and regular scribe Robert Mark Kamen. From the actual kidnapping—breathlessly staged with Kim actually on the phone with dad—to Bryan arriving in Paris and immediately causing a pileup outside the airport, pic has the forward, devil-may-care momentum of a Bond movie on steroids". He criticizes, the "widescreen package is technically slick at all levels, and ditto the action choreography, in a cartoonish way".[7] Kenneth Turan, of the The Los Angeles Times, described the premise of Taken as "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". He characterized Bryan Mills as "a 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".[8]
References
- ^ http://www.chinapost.com.tw/art/movies-&-films/2009/02/03/194467/CIA-thriller.htm
- ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012903841.html?hpid=topnews
- ^ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28965358/
- ^ Jaafar, Ali; Keslassy, Elsa (21 November 2008). "New French wave prefers genre films - Morel, Leterrier, Aja lead new crop of directors". Variety. Retrieved 1 February 2009.
- ^ McClintock, Pamela (31 January 2009). "Box office crown 'Taken' by Fox". Variety. Retrieved 1 February 2009.
- ^ "Taken (2009))". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2009-02-06.
- ^ Elley, Derek (13 March 2009). "Taken". Variety. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
- ^ Turan, Kenneth (January 30, 2009). "Review: Taken". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
External links
- Official Website
- Film Review Long Island Exchange
- Taken at AllMovie
- Taken at IMDb
- Taken at Metacritic
- Taken at Box Office Mojo
- Taken at Rotten Tomatoes