Taken

France

2008

93 Min

Color

2.35:1

Albanian, Arabic, French, English

Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
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SCR Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen

CAST Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, David Warshofsky, Famke Janssen, Holly Valance, Katie Cassidy, Xander Berkeley, Olivier Rabourdin, Gérard Watkins, Nicolas Giraud, Camille Japy, Anatole Taubman

Seventeen year-old Kim is the pride and joy of her father Bryan Mills. Bryan is a retired agent who left the Secret Service to be near Kim in California. Kim lives with her mother Lenore and her wealthy stepfather Stuart. Kim manages to convince her reluctant father to allow her to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda. When the girls arrive in Paris they share a cab with a stranger named Peter, and Amanda lets it slip that they are alone in Paris. Using this information an Albanese gang of human traffickers kidnaps the girls. Kim barely has time to call her father and give him information. Her father gets to speak briefly to one of the kidnappers and he promises to kill the kidnappers if they do not let his daughter go free. The kidnapper wishes him “good luck,” so Bryan Mills travels to Paris to search for his daughter and her friend. –IMDb

Director

Pierre Morel

Pierre Morel (born 12 May 1964) is a French cinematographer and film director.

After spending his formative years in cinema school, Pierre Morel debuted in 2000 as camera operator with the first Richard Berry’s film L’Art (délicat) de la séduction.

The next year, he began a career as cinematographer, working with such directors as Louis Leterrier, Corey Yuen, Nancy Meyers, Alek Keshishian, Luc Besson and Phillip Atwell. At the same time, he directed his first film District 13 in 2004, followed by Taken in 2008 and From Paris with Love, in 2010.

According to an online article, Morel has taken over the directing duties for the upcoming Paramount remake of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Morel will replace Peter Berg who left the film in October 2009. He has since left the project. He was in talk to direct the film adaption of the Hasbro game Ouija.

Controversy

Some critics have the opinion that Morel has a racist agenda for his negative portrayal of Albanians… read more

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El-DoX

4Apr13

Discreto ed esasperato action, serrato nel montaggio dove pesa la mano di Besson dietro le quinte. Neeson si conferma un bravo attore. A lui in fin dei conti non interessa se può risultare o meno funzionale in una parte, la si prende e si viene pagati. Il problema di Taken è qui, Neeson non me lo trovo adatto nel ruolo da spietato ex agente dei Servizi Segreti. Con lui crollano le poche convinzioni rimaste nel film.

Zach Closs

17Feb13

Unpretentious, inconsiderate, sensationalistic and savage. "Taken" rolls out a familiar set-up, one that more than gently shoves star Liam Neeson directly into the spotlight. Shoulder-to-shoulder with the unbelievably irritating Maggie Grace and the unrealistically bitchy and arrogant Famke Janssen, he's forced to be our emotional anchor as well as our thrilling action hero, and does he ever provide. "Taken" has more than a few weak elements that were a certain turn off to me initially, but not since the films of John Woo has there been such an emotional performance at the heart of such a straightforward action flick. The set-pieces, the only other reason to watch the film, are straightforward and succinct; brutal shootouts and fisticuffs clearly visualized and presented.