Taken: A Particular Set of Skills For A Renewed Career

Taken came out in 2008 and was an unexpected hit. It not only revitalized Liam Neeson’s career, but started a new type of action movie. Since Taken, Liam Neeson has done many action movies and has found his niche.  I’d like to welcome everyone to my Liam Neeson action movie review series. We are going to explore common themes in Liam Neeson’s action movies starting with Taken. First is the character name which is usually a very white common sounding name. In Taken his name is Bryan Mills. Then his character is very calm and trying to have a normal life until something happens to bring him out of it. Of course there is the hand to hand combat and throat punching.

Most of us know the plot of Taken where a guy's daughter played gets kidnapped in France and Liam Neeson has 72 hours to get her back. He was an ex CIA agent with a particular set of skills. He has an ex wife played by Famke Janssen and ex wife characters are usually abrasive in these type of movie but this character is so hateful and annoying that the audience really hates her and is happy that Liam Neeson was right about the daughter being kidnapped. Maggie Grace plays the daughter and she does a good job. The daughters friend played by Katie Cassidy, makes a lot of bad decisions like getting in a cab with strangers and staying in a penthouse by themselves. The friend is found dead in a sex worker den and Liam Neeson doesn’t even tell the daughter.

So when the daughter gets kidnapped she is taking to Liam and he uses his skills to have the daughter  yell out a physical description of the kidnappers. When they find the phone Liam gives his famous speech then it’s off to France to find his daughter. He finds the kidnappers and works his way up the ladder. When he fights he uses precise moves to incapacitate his enemies. He is always reluctant at first but then does what needs to be done. There is only one instance of Liam punching someone in the throat in the movie. I thought there were more since it’s known as a staple for him in action movies.

Liam has a contact in the French police that helps him throughout the movie only to betray him later on. He finds the group that does the kidnapping of young girls and kills them all. He finds that his daughter was sold into sex trafficking and that’s where he finds the friend who died. He breaks into the French man's house to interrogate him and actually shoots his wife in the arm. This is surprising because it goes against his moral judgement. Shooting the man himself makes more sense because he is guilty of something, but the wife had no idea what was going on. This fits in with the cliche of the old friend betraying the protagonist.

Liam finds the leader of the sex ring and the person who bought his daughter. He jumps onto a boat and stops the guy who appears to be an Arab prince. So he saves his daughter and everyone comes home safe, except the daughters friend. He tries to have a normal life with his daughter and focus on her. Taken is a solid action movie and would inspire many copycats over the years. This would be the start of many action movies for Liam Neeson for the next decade. 🍔🍔🍔 and 1/2 🍔