Nuffnang

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Taken



Plot

Highly skilled CIA officer Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) has retired in an effort to build a closer relationship with his teenage daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). His frequent absences made him a distant father and led to his divorce. Knowing Kim wants to be a singer, Bryan buys her an expensive karaoke machine for her 17th birthday, which she is pleased with, but he is upstaged by Kim's wealthy stepfather Stuart (Xander Berkeley), who surprises her with a horse. Later, Bryan's former colleague, Sam (Leland Orser), hires him to help provide concert security for a popular young singer, Sheerah (Holly Valance). When Bryan saves her from a knife-wielding attacker, Sheerah gratefully offers to help with Kim's musical aspirations.

Bryan's ex-wife, Lenore, (Famke Janssen) and Kim attempt to persuade Bryan to allow Kim to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy), claiming that it is to visit museums. Bryan is reluctant to let her travel, as he believes she is too young and naive to be travelling around Paris with only a 19-year old for company. After Lenore implores him further, he eventually agrees on the condition that Kim follow a strict set of rules he has set her. To his dismay, it turns out that the girls actually intend to follow a U2 concert tour around Europe.


In Paris, Kim and Amanda meet Peter (Nicolas Giraud), a charming young stranger who suggests sharing a taxi from the airport. Peter learns that they are staying alone in Amanda's cousins' apartment (Amanda had neglected to mention her cousins were on holiday). After they part, Peter phones someone and passes along what he has learned.


Later, while on the phone with Bryan, Kim sees some men enter the apartment and abduct Amanda. Bryan starts recording the call, and instructs Kim to hide under the bed and tells her to shout out information about the kidnappers when they come for her. She yells out the description of the men as she is grabbed. Afterward, Bryan realizes that someone has picked up the phone and is listening, and tells him that if they let his daughter go, he will drop the matter, but if not, "I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you." The listener replies, "Good luck."

Bryan sends Sam the recording to have it analysed; he determines that the abductors are likely part of the Albanian Mafia, which specializes in sex slavery. He tells Bryan and Lenore of a grim statistic: if Kim is not rescued within 96 hours (four days), chances are she will never be found. Using Stuart's connections with a plane company, Bryan flies to Paris that very evening. Upon arrival, he heads to the apartment, where he finds his first clue: a photograph of Peter on the memory card of Kim's smashed cellphone. He finds Peter as he is charming another possible victim at the airport.


After a short chase, Peter is struck and killed by a truck. Bryan then turns to an old friend, Jean-Claude (Olivier Rabourdin), previously a field agent with French Intelligence, but now working behind a desk. After managing to eavesdrop on the conversation of a couple of Albanian pimps, the trail leads to a construction site with a makeshift brothel. Posing as a customer, Bryan notices a semi-conscious prostitute who has his daughter's jacket. He rescues her, killing several gangsters in the process. The girl, after regaining consciousness, tells Bryan the address of the house where she met Kim. Bryan bluffs his way in, pretending to be a corrupt policeman looking for a bribe. He identifies Marko Hoxha as the one he spoke to on the phone, takes him prisoner and kills the other crooks. Searching the house, he finds Amanda dead, apparently from a heroin overdose.

Bryan tortures Marko into revealing that, because Kim is a highly valuable virgin, she was sold to a slave dealer named Patrice Saint-Clair (GĂ©rard Watkins). He leaves Marko to die slowly from unending electric shocks. Needing more information, Bryan goes to Jean-Claude's home. Jean-Claude admits to accepting bribes to look the other way and tries to force Bryan at gunpoint to give up his search.

However, Bryan has taken the bullets out of the gun. He then draws his own and wounds Jean-Claude's wife in the arm to pressure Jean-Claude into giving up Saint-Clair's address. Bryan impersonates a police commissioner to enter an exclusive party at Saint-Clair's mansion, and locates a secret sex-slave auction in the basement. Fortunately, Kim is the last offering. Bryan forces a buyer to purchase her, but he is knocked unconscious before he can get to her. He awakens handcuffed to a pipe. After learning Bryan's motive, Saint-Clair orders him killed and leaves. Bryan frees himself, kills Saint-Clair's henchmen, and forces Saint-Clair to divulge Kim's whereabouts before executing him. Bryan sees Kim being forced onto a yacht, and pursues it along the Seine. He jumps aboard and dispatches the guards. After a vicious hand-to-hand fight with the buyer he had intimidated earlier, he enters a bedroom, where he finds an Arab sheikh holding a knife to Kim's neck. The man tries to negotiate, but Bryan shoots him in the head.

After they return to the United States, Bryan surprises Kim with a visit to Sheerah for an audition.
(copied from Wikipedia)

I love this action movie! Very exciting and cool! If this type of abduction in Paris is true, it is really scary out there. Never talk to stranger and definitely not to reveal your address or other details.

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