Movie Review: Taken

MPAA Rated PG-13 (should push more towards R than the PG -13 it received)

Before watching the movie Taken, I had heard many people say that they really liked it that it was gripping and intense. Being a Liam Neesan fan, I was looking forward to watching this drama and was hoping for a good script.

Liam Neesan plays a retired Government agent that is estranged from his wife and daughter. He has just moved to California to renew relations with his 16 year old daughter when the movie opens. Neesan is beside himself when he realizes that his daughter, Jenny, wants to spend the Summer in Paris. Shortly after he relents and lets his daughter go to Paris, he finds out that she plans on traveling around Europe following the rock group U2. Because of his history, he is nervous about the situation and does not want his daughter to go. After a set of ultimatums given to his daughter he lets her go reluctantly.

Not long after the landing of Jenny and her friend in Paris, they arrive in the house of Jenny's friends cousins house. Within the course of a few minutes strange men burst in the house and kidnap both Jenny and her friend. Jenny happened to be on the phone with her father at the time and she is able to give him some description of what the perpetrators looked like. He is able to talk to one of the men foreshadows the rest of the movie telling him he will find him and wont stop until his daughter is found.

The movie is an okay action movie. There is not much dialogue and the characters are not well developed. But the movie does do a good job drawing attention the sex-slave trafficking that takes place in countries all around the world. If we walk away with nothing else from this movie hopefully we will come away with the reality that this type of stuff exists and should be dealt with.

My Rating 2 of 5 Nateys