– the movie “Taken” gives new meaning to a dad telling his teenage daughter “call me when you get there.” Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a retired spy who left his ‘James Bond’ of a job to be closer to his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). But daddy can’t compete with Kim’s new lifestyle – a life of luxury in Beverly Hills where she resides with her step-dad and her mother (Famke Janssen). But when Kim and her friend decide to high-tail it off for a summer in Paris, all hell breaks loose and suddenly daddy’s spy skills come to the rescue. The writer/director team of Mark Robert Kamen and Luc Besson knows this style of story full of damsels-in-distress, prostitutes and underdogs – they did the “Transporter” movies. And even though there are times in this particular story that you might want to say “now wait a second here….” the plot pretty-neatly crosses all its ‘T’s’ and dots its ‘I’s’ (like when the dad tells his daughter “my international number is plugged into your phone” so we understand why Kim should be able to dial him so easily.) The ticking clock of a middle-aged father finding his daughter within 96 hours less she falls into the hands of the white slave traders, coupled with Neeson’s Jason Bournesque skills, make for a highly entertaining/edge-of-your-seat/pedal-to-the-medal popcorn flick. Three tiaras
