Taken

‘Taken’ with Liam Neeson well worth the ride

LIAM NEESON and Famke Janssen in “Taken.”

Ever multitask while watching a movie at home?
You know, maybe you have the computer on your lap and you glance at the TV and then read e-mail, or play solitaire or read the letter from Aunt Ethel.
I was checking out Facebook when I started to watch the action roller-coaster film “Taken.”
The great Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired superagent for the government. Today, he works security for rock stars and wonders what he will buy his daughter, Kim, played by Maggie Grace, for her birthday.
Bryan has all the right moves when it comes to knocking the knife out of the hand of a would-be killer but is clumsy when it comes to a relationship with his 17-year-old daughter, whom he loves dearly but really doesn’t know.
She lives with her mother (Famke Janssen) and rich stepdad.
Bryan frets over a birthday gift, deciding to buy a karaoke machine because she’s interested in singing. Daughter is pleased until she sees what Stepdad bought her: a horse.
We see Dad that evening, pasting the latest birthday photo into a scrapbook.
He clearly loves his daughter and when she wants to spend the summer in Paris with her cousin, played by Katie Cassidy, his immediate response is no. He’s seen the dangers of the world and doesn’t want his daughter exposed to it all just yet.
But pressured, he signs papers, and the cousins are off to France, where they quickly meet a boy who invites them to a party.
Except there’s no party. He’s part of a group that kidnaps young girls, dopes them up and sells them into sexual slavery.
In an exceptionally chilling scene, Kim is on the phone, talking to Dad when she sees through a window, kidnappers grab her cousin.
Dad tries to calm her down and tells her what to do. He directs her to hide under the bed. What is really chilling is he says she will be found and kidnapped. He tells her to leave her cell phone on and yell out any descriptions of the kidnappers as they take her.
At this point, I was in for the ride, and my Facebook was left unattended.
Forget subplots; forget strong characterizations. The dye has been cast. The explosive story unfolds at breakneck speed as the Neeson character tracks down clues in search of his daughter. If he doesn’t catch her quickly, she will be gone from him forever.
Being this is a particularly heinous crime, we can forgive the Neeson character for the way he dispatches bad guy after bad guy to their doom.
Some scenes will have you gasping as he does what needs to be done to get to the next point in the puzzle to find his daughter. When he barges into dinner at an old friend’s home but the friend won’t cooperate, the Neeson character simply shoots the wife in the shoulder to force his hand.
Despite the heavy action scenes and the body toll, there is little blood or sex, and the film is not particularly bad when it comes to language.
At 93 minutes, it’s just the right length for a good, solid popcorn movie.
French director Pierre Morel does an outstanding job pacing the film.
After it was over, I was hoping for a director’s commentary as an extra, something I rarely look for. Unfortunately, the Blu-ray copy I rented didn’t include one.
But “Taken” is well worth the ride. Just put it in your DVD player and take off.

TAKEN
• Directed by Pierre Morel
• Written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Karmen
• Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing thematic material, sexual content, some drug references and language.
• Runtime: 93 minutes
• 4 stars out of 4