They Picked The Wrong Daughter. By Tai-Pan on Feb 14, 2009 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

TAKEN (2008)

Twentieth Century-Fox Film/Europa Corp.

Starring: Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Xander Berkeley...

Bryan: "I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you 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 career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

Marko: [after a long pause] Good luck"

Chilling.

It's only a movie.

Still.

I love movies/ t.v. shows. Remember "Dream On" the HBO t.v. show from the 90's?

That's me. I was raised on ‘em.

They are stories. We were designed by The Greatest Story Teller ever to relate, resonate, live with them.

We remember them longer than any "report" or "data" we will ever receive.

I collect favorites. Books, movies, tales told, no matter, they touch me, I keep them.

This will be one.

At the tender young age of 40up, I know the loss of loved ones, not by so intrusively human means as this story, but loss. I know where this character finds himself, where he will go. He does what has never been mine to do.

Enough. You came for a review.

Bryan Mills (Neeson) has retired from the spy game, to be closer to his teenage daughter Kim (Maggie), whose childhood he has missed too much of due to duty. Apparently divorced some years now, his relationship with re-married Lenore (Famke) is icy at best, with the new husband (Berkeley), it's no better of course.

Still an under-aged minor, Kim needs the signed agreement of both natural parents to take a European summer spree with a friend. Bryan, having learned the dark nature that lurks just around the corner in this world; is uncomfortable with this decision. But as can be with so many Dads, pressure of a child's disapointment causes him to relent... "with conditions". Every parent knows how fast those can fade in the memory of youth.

Very little time is spent getting to the action after this set-up. Very little is left when it is done.

But masterfully piloted by Neeson it is a transitional tensioner that builds and holds to the very last.

With surgical precision we follow Bryan through Parisian locals both seedy and genteel as he pursues the captors of his child. From the onset of his daughter's vacation gone horrifyingly wrong, we are shown what he means by " a particular set of skills" as he demonstrates the abilities of a determined father honed by decades of espionage.

One pausing moment during this 93min palapatator gives us a jaw clenching glimpse of a father's otherwise controlled doubt and fear, as Bryan holds his daughter's discarded jacket. The last thing he saw her in.

What else has been TAKEN from her?!?

Don't look for gore in this film, but you better be ready for "brute", "methodical", "cold resolve" and "final". Supporting roles by Janssen and Berkeley are complete in their place.

This is Neeson's story beginning to end. I enjoyed the second viewing more than the first. Get the popcorn.