Taken [MA]

When his daughter is kidnapped in Paris, former spy, Brian, sets out to find her at any at any cost. Using all the special skills that he has acquired through a long and lustrous career, he tracks down the gang that kidnapped her and launches a one-man war to bring them to justice and rescue his daughter, letting nothing and no one stand in his path. 

This movie is awesome! It has to be the most action-packed, frightening, and thrilling display of paternalism ever seen on screen! It literally keeps you on the edge of you seat from start to finish. 

When his daughter is kidnapped in Paris, former spy, Brian, sets out to find her at any cost. Using the special and exceptional skills that he has acquired through a long and lustrous career, he tracks down the gang that kidnapped her and launches a one-man war to bring them to justice and rescue his daughter, letting nothing and no one stand in his way. 

I have often said that thrillers are much better for you if you want a scare than horrors. Horrors tend to be overdone and not really believable in the slightest, but thrillers are perfect for scares because they harbour all these scenarios that could really happen, particularly in this increasingly unstable society that we find ourselves in today. In Taken, it’s truly frightening to think that there are and have been scenarios where young, backpacking women had been abducted and used in sex trafficking, then forced to take drugs, become addicted, and finally forced into prostitution. Watching this film, as a girl, it’s enough to make your insides quiver with fright and repulse. 

Liam Neeson stars as Brian and he delivered a mesmerising and deeply moving performance. Liam just seems to have a real natural and genuine paternal character; it was this that made me fall in love with him in Love Actually. And in Taken, we see that paternal love taken to a whole new level as he flies, really flies, hell bent into all sorts of jeopardy to save his daughter. It’s almost mindless like Arnie in The Terminator: that whole “there is no plan B, there is only plan A” Liam was brilliant, absolutely brilliant! 

Starring Maggie Grace, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, David Warshofsky, Famke Janssen, and Holly Valance, Taken is a fantastic thriller packed with action, suspense, violence, and frightening modern forms of immoral treachery. It grips you round the throat and won’t let go until you’ve drawn that final, sweet terrified gasp. Absolutely fantastic!