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Taken
Taken (film) is 2008 French film starring Liam Neeson, based on a script by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen and directed by Pierre Morel. Neeson is playing an ex-soldier who is tracking down his daughter after she was kidnapped by slave masters while traveling in Europe.

Cast

 * Liam Neeson


 * Maggy Grace playing the kidnapped daughter of Liam Neeson's character
 * Holly Valance

Production notes
The movie is produced by Luc Besson's "Europacorp". Luc Besson is responsible for the commercial success of a number of French films like "Taxi" in the past years. This development can be described as "French New Wave 2.0". This new movement means commercial success for films that do not claim to belong to the French "cinema d'auteur". They are not only successful in France but also internationally. And thus directors of these films gain access to international projects.

Admissions for French films abroad are rising, for the last year is an incease of 17% reported, that means French films sold 78 million tickets abroad in the year 2008. Unifrance president Margaret Menegoz is expecting an increase in ticket sales of 23 % for the year 2009. Films produced by Luc Bessons "Eoropacorp" are among the top ranking films of the last year, with Transporter 3 ranking number 7.

Screenplay
Taken is revolving around the tragedy that happens to two young girls who visit Europe. They are spontaneous when planing their trip and are not honest neither to their parents nor to each other. When they arrive in Paris they get lured into telling a stranger their address and in their carelessness they even disclose that they are all alone in the apartment in Paris. When this happens one of the girls Kim Miller starts to wonder why her friend Amber lied to her that the father of the family would be present in the apartment. She calls her father because she is worried and just in that moment she can observe through the window how kidnapper enter the apartment and violently carry Amber away and furthermore they start searching for Kim. This is the moment when the main character of the film is revealed to the viewer Kim's father Bryan Miller, he is a retired CIA agent and he threatens the kidnapper on the phone, that he has skills that enable him to kill the criminal, if he doesn't immediately set Kim free. The kidnapper replies coolly "Good luck". This scene in which Kim is captured by the Albanian mafia demonstrated how psychologically strong and smart the father is and how nervous, unexperienced and helpless his daughter. When she is hiding under the bed the father warns her that they are going to catch her, when they are finally in her room, the father finds the time identify the nationality of the kidnappers. When they leave the room, Kim is so nervous that she immediately gives herself away when she hastily whispers in the phone "They are leaving". Just in the same moment a man who stayed in the room grabs her legs and pulls her out of her hiding place. When she might have had the mind to wait for a couple of moments before talking, the other man might have left, too. Thus this is the difference between father ans daughter, his experience and skills, his readiness of mind on the one hand and on the other hand her spontaneous attitude, her carelessness when planning her trip, these differences bring about the progress of the plot and these extremes in their personal qualities and the mistakes that they subsequently make determine the suspense structure created by the plot. It is their difference that veers them away from each other more and more until finally it is the father who is running for the ship that carries his daughter away from him and he is fighting to regain her and bridge the gap that has been tragically braught about their lives.

Tragical turnarounds determine the plot. Just in the same moment when the father succeeded to offer his daughter a chance to start a career a singer, what she was dreaming of, just in this moment she is driven away from him, she wants to go to Europe and he can't even mention that he has a very special offer for her. A happy rescue mission of a young singer, this story is told in form of the stylistic device named frame story. This frame story deals with an attack at the young singer. Retired spy Bryan Mills was previously convinced by his friends to be her bodyguard. After a concert somebody opens the gate and the fans overwhelm the singer. Mills protects her and brings her away to the exit where a man with a knife is awaiting her. Mills overpowers him and afterwards the singer is very grateful to him and offers him the telephone number of her voice coach and manager who are the decisive persons to support the beginning of a professional singer career. The tragedy for Kim starts when she surprisingly informs her father of her wish to go to Europe and thus misses the chance to learn more about her new opportunity. But the frame story deals with successful recovery missions and thus a happy ending can be expected. Finally it is the singer who invites the recovered Kim to thackle the issue with her singer career, thus accomplishing the frame story at the end of the film.

Release
The film had its widest release at 3, 186 theaters in the United States on January 30, 2009. In its opening day it grossed $9,5 million, scoring the best opening day ever for Super Bowl weekend. As of January 30, 2009 the film grossed estimated $9,350,000 at the domestic box office and $78,182,003 at the box office worldwide.

Critical Reception
Derek Elley of Variety described the film as a “dumb, pedalto-the-metal actioner”. He added. “Besson alum Pierre Morel ... wisely doesn't give the viewer any time to ponder the string of unlikely coincidences in the script by Besson and regular scribe Robert Mark Kamen. From the actual kidnapping – breathlessly staged with Kim actually on the phone with dad -- to Bryan arriving in Paris and immediately causing a pileup outside the airport, pic has the forward, devil-may-care momentum of a Bond movie on steroids. He criticizes, the”widescreen package is technically slick at all levels, and ditto the action choreography, in a cartoonish way.”

Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times described the premise of “Taken as" a brisk and violent action programmer that can't help being unintentionally silly at times...Obviously, "Taken" is not the kind of action film to spend much time worrying about its pedestrian script or largely indifferent acting, so it's fortunate to have Neeson in the starring role. He characterized Bryan Mills as “a relentless attack machine who is impervious to fists, bullets and fast-moving cars, he uses a variety of martial skills to knock out more opponents than Mike Tyson and casually kill those he doesn't KO.”

Bernard Besserglik of The Hollywood Reporter said, “EuropaCorp, Luc Besson's production, distribution and sales group, has become a past master of this kind of filmmaking-by-the-numbers, and "Taken," Pierre Morel's action thriller that Besson co-scripted, might do good business at home and abroad among audiences unconcerned with the finer points of characterization or psychological insight.” Nevertheless he appreciates, that “Neeson fully earns his crust in his role as nonstop action man. Required by the script to limit his range to two basic expressions -- passionate concern for his daughter and implacable wrath for her abductors -- he manages on occasion to hint at vulnerabilities and flaws underlying the character. Janssen and Grace, however, are trapped in two-dimensional roles, while the numerous bad guys are so briefly developed and so rapidly dispatched that the press kit does not consider it necessary to specify the actors' names.” Roger Ebert of the The Chicago Sun Times said, “"Taken" shows Mills as a one-man rescue squad, a master of every skill, a laser-eyed, sharpshooting, pursuitdriving, pocket-picking, impersonating, knife-fighting, torturing, karate-fighting killing machine who can cleverly turn over a petrol tank with one pass in his car and strategically ignite it with another ... It's the set-up for a completely unbelievable action picture where Mills is given the opportunity to use one element of CIA spycraft after another, read his enemies' minds, eavesdrop on their telephones, spy on their meetings and, when necessary, defeat roomfuls of them in armed combat...The movie proves two things. (1) Liam Neeson can bring undeserved credibility to most roles just by playing them, and (2) Luc Besson, the co-writer, whose actionerassembly line produced this film, turns out high-quality trash, and sometimes much better ("The Fifth Element," "Taxi," "The Transporter," "La Femme Nikita," even "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada").

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly grades the film C and compares it to "Paul Schrader's 1979 Hardcore with no brain and more muscle”. He added, “Neeson — a hulk with ackknife limbs — makes Jason Bourne look ike a man of tired reflexes.”