Quick Review: Taken

I was going to see a comedy Monday at the Cobb Movies 4, but I was talked into seeing "Taken" instead, with Liam Neeson as a retired and divorced government agent who tries to get close to his teenage daughter. She takes an overseas trip to Paris, and, Natalie Holloway style, things go wrong when she and her girl friend are kidnapped. Daddy is overseas in a flash to find her. Frankly, you do need to leave some of your brains at home on this one, as bodies fall like the autumn leaves and no one ever gets arrested, even Neeson, who takes revenge at such turns that Interpol would be kept busy for a year with hardly a scratch on him. (Some of international bad-guy cliches and the fact an American can essentially be a cowboy and kill half of Europe probably won't win fans overseas. However, the basic premise of kidnapping for the result of human trafficking and prostitution is a very real problem.) But the situation is set up where you care about the girl and the father, and what parent would not want revenge and have the skills that this father has? It is a satisfying thriller that, warts and all, will please audiences and scare parents into NEVER letting their underage children go overseas.