As almost every one of Hollywood's middle-aged leading men has shown us at least once in his career, when a bad guy messes with a man's family, he'd better watch out. The fact that good old dad has never thrown a punch or picked up a gun in his entire life? Let's just say paternal instinct and criminal stupidity are enough to get the job done. Of course throw in, say, a lifetime career as a government operative, and let's just say whatever bad guys make the mistake of messing with that dad are in for the whipping of their lives.

When Taken opens, we find ourselves at little Kimmie Mills' (Maggie Grace) fifth birthday. All smiles, Kimmie blows out the candles on her cake and unwraps a toy horse (not quite a pony, but getting close). In the background, the flash of a camera goes off, capturing every moment of the celebration. Suddenly, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) wakes up. Alone in his empty apartment, he looks down at the photo clasped within his hands of a much older Kim on a horse. And as the empty darkness closes in around the solitary father, the scene ends.

Shortly thereafter, Bryan arrives at a palatial home for Kim's actual 17th birthday party. He gives her a karaoke machine. Her stepfather gives her a horse. Through a few civil yet slightly awkward conversations, we get the impression that Bryan is not exactly regarded as a number one father. As his ex-wife reminds him, he was never around before and suddenly deciding to be around now isn't going to change things overnight. But as his former government operative colleagues point out, while his frequent absence from his daughter's life may have communicated a certain lack of concern, he has given up a lot for the times he has been there for her. At least once, he bailed out mid-mission to keep his promise to Kim never to miss her birthday. And in an effort to reconnect with her before she is all grown up and gone, he has actually retired from his lifetime career.

Of course, all of that is really just set up for Bryan's butt-kicking tour of Paris that takes up most of the movie. Although Bryan at first refuses to give Kim permission to travel to Paris with friends for the summer, he finally gives in to her pouts and sends her off amid a burst of grateful hugs. Even though her plane makes it safely across the ocean, in true I-told-you-so-fashion that no parent ever wishes for, Kim and her friend are spotted by a member of a human trafficking ring as soon as they arrive in Paris. And as Bryan listens on the other end of the phone, Kim and her friend are taken away never to be seen again.

What the men who have taken Kim don't quite get is that Bryan is not about to let his daughter go so easily. As he tells the man who picks up the phone after Kim is abducted, "If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills: skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you." As he tells a Parisian government contact from his days working as a spy, "I will tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to." And as he pretty much kills and tortures his way closer and closer to his daughter, he proves that he is not joking. Not much more than a moderately entertaining action flick, there really isn't a whole lot to Taken. Liam Neesen kicks butt, father and daughter are happily reconciled, and that's pretty much that. If I were to mine the story for a little bit deeper meaning, however, Bryan and Kim's relationship does have some insight to offer. In the beginning, the relational dynamic between Kim and Bryan is essentially one where love is won with gifts and denial is almost an immediate ticket to distance. Buy the girl a pony: earn her love. Tell her a pony is too dangerous: become the father who doesn't care at all. But by the end of the film, what we see is that the true love of a parent for a child is about much more than satisfying that child's every desire.

Continue: 1 2