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Taken poster

Taken

2008 ยท 90 min ยท movie
โญ 7.7 (673,784 votes)

Former Green Beret and retired CIA officer Bryan Mills attempts to build a closer relationship with his 17-year-old daughter, Kim, who lives with her mother, Lenore, and her wealthy step-father, Stuart. While overseeing security at a concert for pop star Sheerah, Bryan saves her from a knife-wielding attacker. Sheerah gratefully offers to have her vocal coach assess Kim, an aspiring singer. Meanwhile, Kim needs Bryan's written permission to visit Paris with her friend, Amanda. Though concerned about Kim's safety, Bryan, pressured by Lenore, reluctantly agrees. At the airport, Bryan learns that Kim and Amanda are actually planning to follow U2 during their European tour.

Upon arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Kim and Amanda meet Peter, who offers to share a taxi. Kim and Amanda arrive at her cousins' apartment, where Kim unexpectedly finds that they are vacationing in Spain. While talking with Bryan on her cell phone, Kim sees men entering the apartment and abducting Amanda. Upon instructions from her father, Kim yells out her captor's descriptions as she is taken. Bryan tells the kidnappers that he will avoid pursuing them if they release Kim, but threatens them with death if they fail to comply. The listener only replies, "good luck", and terminates the call. Bryan's former colleague, Sam, deduces the kidnappers belong to an Albanian sex trafficking ring, and identifies the recorded voice as mob boss Marko Hoxha. Based on previous abductions, if Kim is not found within 96 hours, it is not likely Bryan will find her again.

Bryan flies to Paris. At the apartment, he finds Kim's phone and checks the photos, identifying Peter, the spotter, in a reflection. Bryan locates and apprehends Peter at the airport attempting to lure another young victim, but Peter breaks free after one of his associates attacks Bryan. In the ensuing pursuit, Peter inadvertently walks into oncoming traffic and is killed by an oncoming truck. With his only lead dead, Bryan contacts Jean-Claude Pitrel, an ex- DGSE agent turned National Police officer. Jean-Claude informs him about the local red-light district where the Albanians operate but warns Bryan to avoid getting involved. Bryan plants a listening device on an Albanian pimp, and with help from a hired translator, is led to a makeshift brothel in a construction yard. He rescues a drugged young woman who has Kim's denim jacket, causing a violent gunfight that kills several sex traffickers. Bryan takes the woman to a hotel and improvises her detoxification.

The next morning, the woman informs Bryan about a safehouse where she and Kim were kept. Posing as Jean-Claude, Bryan infiltrates under the pretence of renegotiating the police protection rate. When Bryan identifies Marko by his voice, the meeting erupts into a fight, which results in several terrorists being killed. Searching the house, Bryan finds Amanda, who died from overdose. Bryan tortures Marko with electricity into revealing that virgins like Kim are sold on the black market, identifying her buyer as crime syndicate terrorist Patrice Saint-Clair. Bryan leaves Marko to die from continuous electrocution.

After a vicious confrontation with Jean-Claude over his corruption in order to disclose Saint-Clair's location, Bryan infiltrates a clandestine sex slave auction occurring beneath Saint-Clair's mansion. Witnessing Kim as the last sale, Bryan forces an Arab bidder to purchase her but is subsequently caught and subdued. Saint-Clair orders him killed, but Bryan breaks loose and eliminates all the henchmen; a mortally wounded Saint-Clair reveals Kim was delivered to a nearby yacht before Bryan murders him.

Boarding the vessel, Bryan eliminates the bodyguards and breaks into a bedroom where a sheikh is holding Kim at knifepoint. He kills the sheikh and saves Kim. They return to the US and are reunited with Lenore and Stuart. Bryan surprises Kim by taking her to visit Sheerah.

Directed by

Pierre Morel

Starring

Xander Berkeley
Leland Orser
Famke Janssen
David Warshofsky
Liam Neeson
Jon Gries
Maggie Grace
Holly Valance