Taken

An action film set in Paris. Bryan is retired. His old work was dangerous jobs for the government; now he lives alone in Los Angeles and is trying to get closer to his daughter. Kim is seventeen and wants to go to Europe with a friend. Bryan does not want to allow it and finally signs. The girls take a flat in Paris. A man they met at the airport learns the address. The house is entered that day. Kim is taken while on the telephone to her father, and Bryan keeps the line open and listens to every sound. A man comes onto the phone and Bryan gives him a warning. From there the film is a search. There is a window of ninety-six hours, a building site, a police flat, an auction and a boat. What the narrative is interested in is not revenge but time: the film keeps reminding you what is left and builds its whole tempo on that. Bryan is methodical. He does not bargain during interrogation, prepares his equipment, and looks for the next piece of information at every step. The narrative does not enter a moral argument. The character tortures and the film objects nowhere; that is its most criticised feature. It is a French production and the screenplay is by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. The lead was not associated with action until then; the film changed his career completely and opened a new genre for him at fifty-six. The running time is kept short and the narrative carries no unnecessary scene. Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen and Leland Orser are in the cast. Pierre Morel directed. Who it is for: anyone who wants short, fast, single-purpose action. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by how the narrative draws its Eastern European and Arab characters; the film is crude on that.