Taken

After years of work as a “preventer,” as he puts it, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is slowly putting his life back in order. He’s moved to Los Angeles to be close to his 17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), of whom he’s very protective, even though she now lives with her mother (Famke Janssen). So when Kim tells her dad she's going to Paris to vacation with a girlfriend, he immediately worries about her safety. When she’s abducted by a group of scumbag Albanians who turn unsuspecting young tourists into prostitutes, he does what any father with a background in espionage and intelligence affairs would do: He sets out to find the bastards and kill them. We soon learn hell hath no fury like a father scorned. Like James Bond or even Jason Bourne, Bryan Miller gets himself in and out of one improbable situation after the other, hotwiring cars, posing as a French policeman and eluding the bad guys in an intense off-road chase along the way. Neeson, though more than up for the role’s physical requirements, isn’t quite as charismatic as a Daniel Craig or Matt Damon. Still, the movie’s suspenseful enough and packs plenty of action into its lean 90-minute running time. HH 1/2