Taken (I) (2008)

A retired CIA agent travels across Europe and relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, who has been kidnapped while on a trip to Paris.

Director:

Pierre Morel

Writers:

Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen

Stars:

Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Leland Orser

1 win & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Liam Neeson	...	Bryan Mills
Maggie Grace	...	Kim
Leland Orser	...	Sam
Jon Gries	...	Casey
David Warshofsky	...	Bernie
Holly Valance	...	Sheerah
Katie Cassidy	...	Amanda
Xander Berkeley	...	Stuart
Olivier Rabourdin	...	Jean-Claude
Gérard Watkins	...	St-Clair
Famke Janssen	...	Lenore
Marc Amyot	...	Pharmacist
Arben Bajraktaraj	...	Marko
Rasha Bukvic	...	Anton
Mathieu Busson	...	Undercover Agent

Storyline

Seventeen year-old Kim is the pride and joy of her father Bryan Mills. Bryan is a retired agent who left the Central Intelligence Agency 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 Albanian 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.

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Plot Keywords:

agent | cia | albanian | france | stepfather | 

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Taglines:

They have taken his daughter. He will hunt them. He will find them. He will kill them.

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing thematic material, sexual content, some drug references and language

Details

Official Sites:

Europa Corp. [fr] Official Facebook

Country:

France USA UK

Language:

English French Albanian Arabic

Release Date:

30 January 2009 (USA)

Also Known As:

Búsqueda implacable

Filming Locations:

Jardins du Louvre, Paris 1, Paris, France

Box Office

Budget:

$25,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$24,717,037 (USA) (30 January 2009)

Gross:

$145,000,989 (USA) (3 July 2009)

Company Credits

Production Co:

EuropaCorp, M6 Films, Grive Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

All of Liam Neeson's character's ex-agency friends were played by actors who had previous roles in 'spy' or 'cop thriller' television shows and movies - Jon Gries played a major role in The Pretender, Leland Orser was in both The Pretender and 24, and David Warshofsky has appeared in minor roles in numerous similar shows.

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Goofs

At LAX, Brian discovers the map and drops his daughter off on the arrival level, even though her flight is departing for Paris. You can see they are on the lower level, which is the arrival level at LAX.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Singh: Mr. Mills, how are you?
Bryan: I'm fine. How are you?
Singh: Very fine. I suppose you want to see it again?
Bryan: If you don't mind.
Singh: You know where it is.
Bryan: Oh yeah.

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Connections

References First Blood (1982)

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Soundtracks

"Tick, Tick, Boom"
Written by Randy Fitzsimmons
Performed by The Hives
(c) Kobalt Music Publishing Limited
(p) 2007 No Fun AB
Courtesy of Polydor France and Universal Music Vision, a Universal Music Publishing France division

User Reviews

Surprising original exciting action movie

I saw this movie tonight at the sneak preview and I was completely surprised and blown away. I went to see this movie with no expectations. In the beginning it seems that it was going to be an easy to watch movie, but after a short time it turned into a high-speed action movie. I found the story original and so did my friends. At some times I found it hard to watch, because of the drug abuse and violence. To know that these practices still occur also gave me a horrible feeling. I was completely taken away by this movie. At some points it was very very quiet in the cinema, because of the excitement, you wonder what is going to happen next. Some moments in the story I found a bit not convincing, but the rest of the movie makes up to that. Liam Neeson in one of his best performances. It had good action, a good story, some humor. There are also some sensitive / sentimental scenes. There are no plot twists. It is just a story being told. This is one of those movies which stay in your memory for a while and let you think about bad things that happen. The movie that had that same effect on me was Traffic (2000). Personally I think this movie is underrated, but maybe this is because it is new. I would give it 8/10.