Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Taken

The 2008 movie starring Liam Neeson was incredible. I have to say it was a lot better than the critics gave it credit for. Neeson's character in this movie, Bryan has a set a special gifts that he acquired over a interesting career. He is now retired and just wants to spend more time with his daughter, Kim. Kim decides to go to Europe to follow U2's european concert tour. However, upon arriving in Paris, Kim and her friend, Amanda meet Peter. Peter is a handsome stranger who offers to take their picture. He then invites them to go to a party. Kim is reluctant, however Amanda pressures her into saying yes. They agree to the party and Peter learns where the two are staying when he asks them where to pick them up at for the party. However,  he discreetly calls some men and informs them of the girls' whereabouts as soon as they leave.

Bryan calls Kim that evening. While they are talking, she sees several unknown men enter the apartment and abduct Amanda. Bryan then starts recording the call and tells Kim go to the next room and hide under the bed, and to shout out information about the kidnappers when they come for her. Kim is grabbed by one of the men, but she shouts a description out before she is taken away. Afterwards, Bryan realizes that someone has picked up the phone. He informs the listener of his specific set of skills and says if they let Kim go, he will not pursue them, but if they do not, "I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you". The listener then replies "Good luck" and destroys the phone. Bryan then sends Sam the recording for analysis.

Sam later informs Bryan that the kidnappers are members of the Albanian Mafia, who specialize in kidnapping teenagers to sell them into sexual slavery. Bryan and Lenore are told that if Kim is not rescued within 96 hours (or 4 days), she will likely never be found again. Bryan flies to Paris that evening using Stuart's connection with a private jet company. After landing in Paris, Bryan breaks into the apartment. He finds a reflection of Peter in a photograph recorded on the memory card of Kim's cellphone and returns to the airport where he finds Peter charming another potential victim. Attacking and brutally beating Peter, he is attacked by Peter's colleague. Beating the man down while Peter escapes, he then chases Peter who jumps from the overpass only to be killed by a passing truck.

Bryan seeks help from an old friend, Jean-Claude, a bureaucrat and former field agent, now within French intelligence. Jean-Claude tells Bryan where to start looking, but warns him not to make trouble. He meets an Albanian businessman who is a translator and later converses with a hooker only to be intimidated by her boss whom Bryan plants a listening device on the back of his collar. With the translator's help, the trail leads to a makeshift brothel at a construction site. He recognizes Kim's jacket on a girl there and takes her with him, killing several guards including the boss of the hooker he met earlier. Jean-Claude calls for a meeting in an open place and Bryan speaks to him through a radio from the Notre Dame de Paris. Jean Claude's boss is angry about the mess Bryan has made and wants to send him back to the U.S, which Bryan angrily refuses, saying that he will not stop until he finds his daughter.

Back at a hotel, the girl recovers and gives Bryan the address where she met Kim. At the site, he bluffs his way in pretending to be a corrupt police officer looking for a bribe. After a short conversation Bryan identifies Marko Hoxha, the man he spoke to on the phone. He knocks him out and kills all the other criminals. Searching the house, he finds several captives and Amanda, dead of an overdose. Enraged at what he has seen, Bryan then tortures Marko by using a makeshift electric chair in the basement. Although originally spitting in Bryan's face (twice) Marko then desperately tells him that because Kim is a virgin, she was sold to a man named Patrice Saint-Clair, because virgins are very valuable at the black market. Satisfied that Marko has told him all he knows, Bryan switches the power back on and walks out, leaving Marko to die.

Bryan then turns up unexpectedly to dinner with Jean-Claude and his wife, where he discovers that Jean-Claude knows things that he is not telling him. Jean-Claude attempts to shoot Bryan, but Bryan has unloaded Jean-Claude's pistol. Bryan then shoots Jean-Claude's wife in the shoulder, and threatens to kill her if Jean-Claude does not tell him where to find Saint-Clair. Bryan leaves the scene and goes to Saint-Clair's mansion, using Jean-Claude's card as an ID. He disables several guards to get downstairs where he finds a secret slave auction in progress. Kim is the last to be sold. Bryan forces an Arab bidder at gunpoint to buy her, but is immediately caught. When Saint-Clair learns who he is, he orders his men to kill him, but Bryan overcomes his captors and then tortures Saint-Clair into revealing where to find Kim. Saint-Clair pleads "It wasn't personal", but Bryan angrily replies "It was all personal to me" before killing him.

Bryan leaves the mansion, where he spots Kim getting into a car. He follows the car and then jumps onto a yacht where Kim has been taken. He dispatches all the henchmen including the Arab bidder. Badly injured he then enters a bedroom to find the buyer holding Kim at knife point. The man tries to bargain but Bryan shoots him in the head. He then hugs Kim who sobs "You came for me" and Bryan replies "I told you I would."

Back in Los Angeles, Bryan reunites Kim with Lenore and Stuart who make it clear to Bryan that he now has their respect. Later, Bryan surprises Kim by taking her to see Sheerah for a personal singing lesson.

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