Taken
HEADLINE: ** No Mercy for the Merciless **
TITLE: TAKEN
Quality: * * * Acceptability: -2
SUBTITLES: None
WARNING CODES:
Language: LLL
Violence: VVV
Sex: S
Nudity: None
RATING: PG-13
RELEASE: January 30, 2009
TIME: 93 minutes
STARRING: Liam Neeson, Katie Cassidy, Famke Janssen, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, and David Warshofsky,
DIRECTOR: Pierre Morel
PRODUCER: Luc Besson
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Didier Hoarau
WRITERS: Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen
BASED ON THE NOVEL/PLAY BY: N/A
DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Fox
CONTENT: (B, LLL, VVV, S, A, DD, MM) Light moral worldview with moral premise, marred by the hero's occasional cold brutality; 16 obscenities (including three "f" words), two strong profanities and 10 light profanities; very strong, sometimes brutal violence includes pointblank shooting, man hit by speeding truck, fighting, man chops throats of some henchmen with his hand to kill them, villain tortured with electric shocks, gun battles, vehicle chase scene, female teenagers kidnapped and imprisoned; implied forced prostitution and sex trafficking; no nudity; alcohol use; smoking and gangsters drug girls in sex trafficking trade; and, lying, kidnapping, tattoos, police corruption.
GENRE: Spy Thriller
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Older teenagers and adults
Please address your comments to:
Rupert Murdoch, Chairman/CEO of News Corp.
Peter Chernin, President/COO of The Fox Group
Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos, Chairmen/CEO
Fox Filmed Entertainment
20th Century Fox Film Corp.
(Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Atomic)
10201 West Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035
Phone: (310) 369-1000
Website: www.fox.com
SUMMARY: TAKEN is a spy thriller starring Liam Neeson as retired spy using his skills in Paris to save his daughter, who has been kidnapped by sex traffickers from Albania. TAKEN is a rousing, straight-ahead chase thriller, but the violence is too brutal occasionally, and there is foul language.
IN BRIEF:
TAKEN is a spy thriller starring Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills, a retired spy who has moved to Southern California to be closer to his 17-year-old daughter, Kim. Reluctantly, he agrees, with his ex-wife, to let Kim and her friend, Amanda, visit Paris for a few weeks. The first day they arrive in Paris some white slave traders from Albania kidnap them. Bryan goes into action in Paris to track down his missing daughter and save her before the evil Albanians sell her off to the highest bidder.
TAKEN is a rousing, straight-ahead chase thriller. The hero, and the movie, takes no prisoners as he hunts down the men who kidnapped his daughter. From the beginning, the movie shows the hero to be a caring father trying to make up for all the times his spy job took him away from his daughter. While in Europe searching for her, however, he is a bit too cold and brutal at times. This makes his character seem a little less heroic and, coupled with the movie's foul language, merits extreme caution. Even so, this is an engaging thriller with a somewhat sympathetic hero.
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