Taken (2008)

Director: Pierre Morel
Starring: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen

Synopsis:
A former CIA operative travels to Paris in search of his kidnapped daughter.

Impressions:
When I saw the first trailer for this movie, I knew it was something special. For the most part, action movies have lost a lot of their charm this side of the millennium. Now, I already liked Liam Neeson before this, but this film managed to set off the arc of his career for the past ten years or so. It's something of an escapist fantasy for middle-aged men, but, hey, middle-aged men need their escapism too. It's got a lot of hard-hitting action and having such a morally grey protagonist who cares about nothing besides his objective makes things interesting. He's neither a white hat nor a 90s-style antihero (though I guess antiheroes like Bryan Mills are fairly common in the stale beer subgenre of spy fiction). This is quite possibly the best action movie to come out of the Aughts and I highly recommend it. Definitely worth adding to your collection.

Rating:
Own It