Directed by Pierre Morel best remembered for ‘The Transporter’ and written by Luc Beeson (he of ‘Leon’ fame), this is a contemporary action film based on a slave-trader kidnap scenario. First based in the USA, then Paris, this is portrayed as a hard hitting action movie, and whilst ‘Taken’ is tagline for the victim, there are no prisoners ‘taken’ in the hunt for reconciliation.

Liam Neeson plays a former agent/soldier type, more than a little paranoid after his dealings with the scum and underworld of the planet, who reluctantly allows his daughter to travel with a friend to Paris for a holiday. She becomes an abductee, who manages to alert her father to her plight in real time, and whose disappearance is the subject of the rest of the movie.  In typical Hollywood fashion, Neeson has a limited time to save her before she is transported from Paris, and likely never seen again; therefore, his actions are swift, brutal and remorseless.

It becomes a wild ride, as Neeson roots out the Albanian (portrayed in a very poor light) perpetrators of the abduction and in frantic, vicious fight scenes disposes of them with no mercy. Torture, martial arts, shootings, hack and slash and plain old bar-room style violence are all featured heavily, but you buy into it, because he looks the part of a man that should not be pushed too far, you can almost smell the fear he has for his daughters safely and connect with it to the point where you believe in the characters violence because it has such gritty realism. Neeson still has a presence on screen, he looks a lot older than the last role I saw him play, but he can still act, and certainly gives this ‘action man’ part a run for it’s money..

Two issues; First problem with the movie is that he plays the part to perfection, but the script never really places him in a position where you think all is lost. Even capture scenes look made ready for more superman effort, and that is unfortunate, because it excels in many other areas. The other thing I have against it is that it look like a Bourne film, an older Bourne with family, but still another rendition of a now formulaic action / spy movie with pumped up action to match Bourne. As far as I am concerned this is a bad move, Bourne is fantastic for it’s exploitation of the high octane action on road, sea and air, but should we have to endure that in every film subsequently released?

7.5/10 I’d give this more if it wasn’t trying to be ‘Bourne 27: The Offspring Abduction’, but as it stands, Liam Neeson drags it from the bland and makes it watchable and on the whole enjoyable. If full on kick arse movies are your thing, then pull up a chair, grab a beer, and prepare to do some heroic air punching.