Taken
February 27, 2008 in theaters
Pierre Morel's 2008 thriller did more than launch a franchise; it reinvented Liam Neeson as an action star at 56. Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired CIA operative whose daughter is kidnapped by an Albanian human trafficking ring during a trip to Paris. The film's brilliance is in its simplicity: Mills has a particular set of skills, the kidnappers will learn them, and the audience spends the next 90 minutes watching a man with terrifying competence dismantle a criminal enterprise. The Paris-set pursuit is lean, brutal, and completely unconcerned with moral ambiguity. Mills doesn't negotiate, he doesn't hesitate, and the film's famous phone call scene, where he delivers the speech that would become a cultural catchphrase, is the moment the movie announces what it is. Taken is a B-movie elevated by A-list commitment, and it spawned a wave of 'aging actor as action hero' films that none of them matched.
Cast
Director
TRAILER
QUOTE
"I have a particular set of skills. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you."
-- Bryan Mills
DID YOU KNOW?
The film was originally conceived as a smaller-budget European thriller, but Neeson's involvement elevated the production value and marketing scope.
THE VERDICT
Synthesized from published reviews
Taken succeeds entirely on Liam Neeson's performance and the lean efficiency of its premise. The plot is thin, the villains are cartoonish, and the geopolitics are questionable at best. But none of that matters. Neeson sells every moment with a gravity that turns a pulp revenge thriller into something genuinely gripping. The phone call scene is iconic for a reason. It knows exactly what it is and doesn't waste a frame.
GALLERY
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