'Taken' movie review by ChristianSpotlight

ChristianSpotlight recommends this PG-13 film:

Quickly, the two girls’ naiveté is exploited, and they are taken advantage of and kidnapped, leaving everyone who called Mills “overcautious” and “uncaring” with him as their only hope to return Kimmie back. With his daughter’s life in the hands of the Albanian Human Trafficking trade, Mills claims vengeance in the bone shivering line “I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you want, but I must let you know, I have a unique set of skills which I have acquired over many years, skills that make me a nightmare for men like you. If you let her go, it will be over, I won’t chase you, I won’t look for you. But if you do not, I will look for you, and I will find you… and I will kill you.”

This is not a run of the mill action film, however. When you enter the theater you expect to see outstanding martial arts scenes, car chases, explosions, gun fights, and Liam Neeson generally showing off how much of a man he still is. What really caught my attention was the heart in this film. The attention to “let’s make sure before we send Liam Neeson on a killing spree the audience cares about his daughter and more importantly, him.” The emotional power was there, not like you would expect from an Oscar winning drama, but it’s there, and it’s enough to make you cringe when you think of what Neeson is up against and what will happen to Kimmie should he fail.

And what may be the best part of the film considering its genre is the fact that I bought it. Yes, it’s incredibly unlikely that an ex-military operative would go on a killing spree weeding out corruption in Paris, France to find the only love in his life, but you know what, it’s still possible. There wasn’t one moment where I found myself saying “oh come on” or “you’ve got to be kidding.” On the contrary, I constantly caught myself thinking “that could happen” or even “if it were my daughter or wife I would absolutely do that to save her.”