A nasty piece of work

Rating: 2/10 (25 June 2011)

It's difficult to believe that any Europeans were involved in the making of "Taken", least of all someone reasonably smart, like Luc Besson.
Liam Neeson's character is clearly an over-protective dad, but he's also someone whose CIA past means that he knows how dangerous the world can be. Is he justified in his anxiety about letting his daughter travel to Paris (yes, not Damascus, Kinshasa or Caracas - Paris)? Of course it is. His daughter and her friend are barely out of the airport when they're abducted by swarthy types (clearly a daily occurrence at Charles de Gaulle). And do these bad guys seek to ransom the clearly very wealthy young women? Mum, Famke Jannsen, and her new fella have got to be good for a few million. No, it makes better financial sense to get the prom queens addicted to heroine and sell them into the sex trade (apparently Eastern European women cost too much to transport?).
Clearly Europe is also a place where venal corruption goes to the top, plus it's just a short walk from... the Middle East. Keep your daughters safe, America! Fortunately foreign laws don't apply to U.S. citizens, so anyone even tangentially involved in the kidnapping is welcome to a bullet in the back. Problem solved.
One of the most xenophobic films I've seen in a long time, clearly intended to reinforce American distrust of Europe and loathing of the East. Its moral compass is so absurdly right-wing it might persuade Harry Callahan to vote Democrat.