Taken (2008) on Netflix
Bryan Mills, a Green Beret turned CIA officer, wants a closer bond with his daughter Kim. He reluctantly lets her fly to Paris with her friend Amanda, and kidnappers seize the girls.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.7/10678,558 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes60%
Trailer
Plot summary
Kim, seventeen, lives in California with her mother Lenore and her stepfather Stuart, while her father Bryan Mills, a former Green Beret who retired from the CIA, tries to stay close to her. On security duty at a concert, Bryan stops a knife attack on the singer Sheerah, who offers to let a vocal coach assess Kim. Kim asks to go to Paris with her friend Amanda, and Lenore presses Bryan until he agrees. In France the girls ride into the city with a stranger named Peter, and while Kim is on the phone with her father, men enter the apartment and seize Amanda. Bryan warns the kidnappers; one tells him good luck and hangs up. He flies to Paris to search for Kim.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Taken (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In 2011 a self-proclaimed counter-terrorism expert was convicted of wire fraud after claiming the film was based on a real-life incident in which his daughter was killed; he pretended to be a retired Green Beret colonel, but records revealed he had been a radar operator in the Coast Guard Reserve between 1962 and 1970.
- Neeson at first thought the film to be no more than a "little side road" for his career and expected it to go directly to video, but instead it went on to define his career and establish him as an action star.
- Jeff Bridges was first cast as Bryan Mills, but after he dropped out Liam Neeson accepted the part, wanting to play a more physically demanding role than he was used to.
- In 2019, to promote tourism and counter the negative perception of Albanians in Western media, the Albanian government and foreign donors produced a tourism advertisement called "Be Taken by Albania", in which Liam Neeson is asked to explore the country's cultural, culinary and tourism hotspots.
- Family Guy parodied the film in the season ten episode "Leggo My Meg-O", with Peter Griffin telling his kidnapped daughter Meg in Paris to "panic"; Neeson described the scene as "corny. It was a cornball. I really did feel that."
- On its opening day in North America the film grossed $9.4 million, the best opening day ever for Super Bowl weekend, and made $24.7 million in 3,183 theaters over the weekend, behind only Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert at $31.1 million.
