Breathless Action Film that remains Human

Rating: 10/10 (17 May 2009)

TAKEN is a fast paced, well designed and choreographed action thriller that details the return to duty of an intelligence man, whose career distanced him from his family, when his own daughter falls victim to the crime syndicate in Paris. The driver of this well written (Luc Besson! and Robert Mark Kamen), well directed (Pierre Morel) film is the non-stop violence filled mission of a desperate father whose skills at getting to the heart of a matter have not been diminished by his 'early retirement'.
Liam Neeson is in grand form as Bryan Mills, the skilled and committed father who can out kill and out wit even the most vicious of the Albanian forces against whom he must struggle to save his kidnapped daughter from being sold into human slavery to an Arab sheik. The film moves so rapidly, with the skills of cinematographer Michel Abramowicz, that the various other characters who populate this drama scarcely have time to establish an identity (Famke Janssen, Radivoje Bukvic, Maggie Grace et al). The violence is constant but due to Bryan Mills' skills each death is so rapid that the camera doesn't linger There are scenes in the brothels where the drug induced young girls serve as prostitutes that are quite disturbing, but again the camera doesn't pause long enough to make them gruesome.
This is a fine performance by Liam Neeson who demonstrates a mastery of the action roles that likely will lead to others in a similar vein. It is a wild ride, but a very fine one.
Grady Harp