My mind has come up with several different ways of beginning this review of Taken (2008).  I have found memories of seeing it when it came out in a drive-in movie theater.  You can still find here and there those relics of Americana.  On the night in question, an old friend of mine and I got some take-out Chinese and did our best to concentrate on the radio broadcast of the dialog because that is how these venues do it these days.  Another thought I had is how tickled I was by the title.  There are many joke opportunities with which I was . . . taken.  Get it?  It also amazes me how much this film is referenced in other movies and throughout popular culture.  It is your garden variety action flick at the end of the day, but it gets a weird amount of play in unexpected places.  It is weird to me, anyway.  Most of all, and this is entirely hindsight, it is an example of a franchise that should have never become one.  Today’s film, the first, is fine.  I recall seeing the second one and thinking it was a disaster.  Since when does anyone ever listen to me, though?

It is not Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) who is Taken, but we will get to that in moment.  Bryan is retired from a career of working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) doing the kinds of jobs for which there is not really a title.  He later tells his daughter, Kim Mills (Maggie Grace), that he was a “preventer.”  I will let your imagination fill in the rest for what that entails.  While he flew around the world “preventing” threats to the United States, he grew distant from Kim and his wife, Lenore Mills-St. John (Famke Janssen).  You will note the hyphenated last time, the result of her divorcing Bryan and remarrying.  Now that he is retired, he is trying to reconnect with his daughter, going by slightly outdated information about Kim like her desire to be a singer.  At her birthday, with a karaoke machine as a present, she tells him that it is still her ambition.  Hoping to score more appreciation points, he gets pop icon Sheerah (Holly Valance) to agree to give Kim some singing lessons as a favor for having saved the star’s life after a concert while working as her bodyguard.  Bryan intends to give her this news over lunch, but Lenore comes as well.  The reason for this is because Kim has received an invitation from her cousin Amanda (Katie Cassidy) to travel to Paris.  With his previous profession, he cites the dangers of two young ladies traveling alone as his reason for him not giving the needed permission for a minor to go on such a trip.  Her disappointment, and Lenore telling him that he will lose Kim if he holds on too tight, changes his mind.  He gives her an international cell phone and tells her to call when she lands.  Between him dropping her off at the airport and when she finally phones, he is a nervous wreck.  When his cell finally rings, they do not have a long conversation.  This is because as she is on the line with her father, she witnesses thugs break into their Parisian apartment and kidnap Amanda.  Kim gives a stressful account of what is happening, while Bryan switches into the mode of a CIA operative in gathering as much information as he can about who is committing these crimes.  He also calmly tells his daughter that she is about to be, well, taken.  After she drops the phone, one of the kidnappers picks it up, and Bryan takes this opportunity to say that unless his daughter is returned to him, he will use his “particular set of skills” to find and kill those responsible.  With a “good luck” from the perpetrator, he sends a recording of his chat to his CIA friend, Sam Gilroy (Leland Orser), gets Lenore’s husband Stuart St. John (Xander Berkeley) to finance his trip to Paris, and is off to the City of Light.  I am contemplating here skimming through much of the action from this point on.  It is a series of vaguely similar events.  Bryan gets a lead, tracks down the people tied to it, and they die.  There is kicking, punching, shooting, torture, and a few car chases in between.  Thus, whenever you get to a period, imagine all the things I just described taking place from one sentence to the next.  In the process, he uncovers some things that go beyond the kidnapping of his daughter.  For starters, his contact within the French police, Jean-Claude Pitrel (Olivier Rabourdin), informs Bryan that there is an Albanian prostitution ring in Paris that has grown exponentially in the last few years.  It would also seem that the Parisian police are on the take, which explains why Jean-Claude is constantly trying to get Bryan to leave.  It all leads to the home of the leader of the crime syndicate, Patrice Saint-Clair (Gérard Watkins), which is where all the girls are sold to the highest bidder.  Bullying his way in, Bryan has a gun on one of the bidders, forcing him to buy Kim when she comes up for auction.  After a temporary disruption where Bryan is knocked out, he gets Patrice to tell him where Kim is being taken.  It turns out to be a large boat on the Seine, which he jumps onto and does more “preventer” things.  More of the above action stuff takes place and, as should be no surprise, he rescues Kim.  The last scene is of them back in Los Angeles and Bryan taking Kim to see Sheerah.

I wonder if Taken calls into question for fathers how far they are willing to go for their children?  Bryan says what I would hope any dad would say, that he would sacrifice anything for his daughter.  It is difficult for this Catholic reviewer to say otherwise, especially since I do not have children of my own.  I like to think that I would do anything for my nieces, but I am not Bryan Mills.  What I am trying to say is that going on the kind of rampage that he does is not the most Christian of actions.  It is not exactly “turning the other cheek,” you know.  I can understand the anger, though.  God created us with a special love between parent and child that is unbreakable.  It can be bent and twisted based on how it is nurtured, but it can never be erased.  Its indelibility is one of the clearer proofs of the existence of God, since God is love.  That is why one could never say to somebody in Bryan’s position, regardless of assassination skills, to not move heaven and earth to find a lost child.  This is what God did by sending Jesus into the world, to bring back the lost sheep.  Such imagery is all over the Bible.  What He did not do is kill everyone who stood in His way.  All I am trying to suggest is that there is a different method.  Ask yourself, though: if you could do what Bryan does, would you react the same way in his shoes?  It is a tricky question.

Yes, there are many aspects of Taken that are action schlock.  Specifically, there is Fast and Furious-esque scene when Bryan uses his car to cause a gasoline explosion.  Nonetheless, the real silliness is saved for the sequels.  This one is passable.