Taken (2008)

Cue deep menacing  voiceover. They have taken his daughter. He will hunt them. He will find them. And he will kill them. Liam Neeson is… HARD AS FUCK.

What do you get if take Commando put it through the Bourne filter, swap the one liners for xenophobia and replace Arnie with a ruthless and deadly Liam Neeson? TAKEN is what you get and, despite the dubious racial stereotyping and crazy logic, it's a bit of a guilty pleasure.

Neeson is retired CIA "preventer" Bryan Mills.  It's never really elaborated on as to what he prevented at the CIA but for the duration of the movie what he prevents is Filthy Foreign Fucks™ from breathing anymore.

Because in TAKEN every foreigner is filthy and a fuck. So Bryan preventalises them.

Before that happens though there is some exposition in which we find out the following; Bryan Mills is separated from his wife, he doesn't see his daughter Kim very often, this is due to his overprotective paranoid nature - which is a by-product of his job. Bryan has quit his job to try and re-kindle a relationship with Kim and make up for all those lost years.

Poor old Bryan gives Kim a much researched karaoke machine for her 17th birthday. His reward? Being berated by his bitchy ex-wife then trumped seconds later by Kim's new millionaire step-dad. He trots out a thoroughbred race horse. Made of gold. That shits puppies made of rose petals. Who laugh diamonds when you cuddle them. 

Bryan feels small. 

Kim feels nothing because she is spoilt and has a bubble for a head.

When Bryan isn't feeling small, making awkward efforts to reconnect or being bollocked by his ex-wife,  he is having boozy BBQs with other CIA preventers. He chats about how much fun it was back in the good old preventing days. He even moonlights as a bodyguard for Holly Valance a multi-platinum selling pop diva - imaginatively named "Diva". 

All this is just a lead up to Kim asking if she can go to Paris for the summer. Bryan doesn't like that. Bryan is paranoid and over-protective, remember? His job made him that way. 

Paris isn't America. It's Foreign. You know what Foreign places are full of? Huh? Well? Do you? 

Culture? Friends you haven't met yet? Local ethnic "colour"? 

No!

Danger! Danger and Filthy Foreign Fucks™. 

After a few tears and a little strop Bryan sees a chance to get the crumb of affection he craves. He decides to snatch it, which coincidentally  is exactly what some Filthy Foreign Fucks™ do when they see his daughter. 

Despite finding out at the last minute Kim is not staying in Paris but gallivanting around Europe following U2 (reason enough not to let her go anywhere ever again) Bryan lets her go, mainly because his ex-wife has another go at him "Let her live Bryan or you'll lose her".

Fine, fine. She can go. She can go to deadly Europe. If you think Foreign places are so fucking safe she can go. So off she goes with her jabbering, blonde friend Amanda. 

Fresh out of Charles de Gaulle airport the pert young yanks are approached by Peter the Friendly Foreigner™. 

"Eeeyyy bonjour pretty lay-deez, eet eez so ex-pon-seeve for the taxi 'ere. Maybe we can, ow you say, share eet."

Idiots. There is no such thing as a Friendly Foreigner™. 

Friendly Foreigners™ are just Filthy Foreign Fucks™ in disguise. Soon Blondie McGullible-Easy-Lay is giving away their address and the fact they are all alone and pretty much everything else except her ass - which she plans on giving to Peter at a party later that night.

Of course the party never happens because, on Peter's orders, a whole bunch of FFFs barge into Amanda's luxury pad and snatch her. Kim hides under a bed and gets a last desperate call to Dad, who records it with his super-spy-kit. Then, as the title suggests, she is TAKEN.

Bryan briefly talks to the kidnappers - give her back or I'll find you and I'll kill you. "Good luck" they say. 

But Bryan doesn't need luck because he's an American. According to his CIA mates he has 96 hours before Kim becomes an untraceable drug addled cum sock for the FFFs. Goddam it he'll find her, even if he has to kill every foreigner in Paris.

You can't help being a hundred percent behind Bryan. He seems so be so starved of affection that he'd probably take out half an army  just have lunch with his daughter. At last he finally has a way to prove his love and win some affection by doing what he does best. 

Killing dirty, evil, twisted, dangerous, perverted foreigners.

The next 80 minutes is a non-stop barrage of fist meets foreigner as Bryan goes above the law and obliterates everything and everyone who is even vaguely non-American. He's every foreigners worst nightmare.

Neeson is strangely compelling, no matter how ridiculous the dialouge or situation, no matter how warped the logic Neeson approaches the whole thing if his life depended on it. Because of this you believe him, he hypnotises you into ignoring the ludicrous plot progression and xenophobia.

It helps that he's also unexpectedly hard. He gouges eyes, throttles and chops windpipes, kicks knees out, snaps arms and necks and legs, he stabs foreigners, he electrocutes foreigners, he makes foreigners jump off bridges and get hit by trucks, he shoots a shitload of foreigners, he makes foreigners explode, he makes foreigners crash into diggers and crush their heads, he pushes foreigners through windows.

He kills a lot of foreigners.  And they deserve it. 

He only pauses to catch his breath while torturing foreigners to figure out which foreigner to kill next. Or to occasionally shoot foreign family members of ex-foreign friends who turn out to be untrustworthy FFFs after all.

Incidentally despite the overwhelming calls to "FEAR THE FOREIGNER" this film isn't even an American film. It's French written and directed by Luc Besson and Pierre Morel, making it a masterpiece of cynical marketing. However Besson did have some help form Karate Kid writer Robert Mark Kamen. Which probably explains why it feels like an 80's actioner wearing the serious "I'm real-world" muted tones and quick edits of 2008. 

It's wrong but it feels so right and  Neeson absolutely kicks arse in no uncertain terms. 

WARNING INVISI-TEXT ENDING SPOILER:

Considering that Kim has been kidnapped, kept sedated with heroin for three days, "examined" by FFF "doctors" to confirm her virginity, had her friend choke on death on her own vomit due to an overdose and been sold to a yet another Filthy Foreigner (this time an Arabian Jabba) for virgin white girl fuck fun - aboard the good ship Islamic Jihad Martyrs Paradise - you'd think she'd act a teensy bit more subdued on arriving home. 

Instead she runs about like a giggly Scarecrow back from a day at Alton Towers. Though frankly that's the least of your worries as far believability goes. 

If your ex-husband had been on a three day foreign kill-a-thon to save your daughters life and mimsy would you make him get a cab home?