The “quest” is a theme repeated over and over in every medium and it emerges reliably in Taken. TAKEN is the story of Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), an ex CIA agent who descends into a Parisian/Albanian hellhole to rescue his underage daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). Kim is kidnapped and Bryan learns that if she isn’t located within 96 hours, forget about it, she’s good as dead. So, the “quest” begins.
One by one the bad guys fall, tortured with electricity (good one!), squished by a truck (surprise!), car chases (de rigueur!) and naturally, lots of shooting with lots of different guns. Bryan rescues one woman, Isabelle (Camille Japy) from a construction site brothel. Isabelle tells Bryan where she and Kim were being housed.
Bryan visits the house/hideout posing as his former colleague, French Intelligence agent Jean-Claude Pitrel (Olivier Rabourdin). While pretending to be Pitrel extorting money from the gang, Bryan recognizes Marko Hoxha (Arben Bajraktaraj) by his voice. Marko had spoken with Bryan on Kim’s telephone after the abduction.
Marko is one of Kim’s kidnappers. Bryan then does what Bryan does best. A brief chat followed by a stern contretemps that terminates with extreme prejudice everybody in the room save Marko Hoxha. Marko gets the “chair”, an electric device improvised by Bryan. After a few kilowatts, Marko spills the beans on Patrice Saint-Clair (Gerard Watkins), the buyer for Sheik Raman (Nabil Massad). But where is Saint-Clair? Pitrel would know. Bryan leaves Marko on low heat and skips crosstown to Pitrel’s apartment. Bryan left the switch on! Poor Marko! Bryan is Fate itself, implacable, unavoidable, and often electrifying.
Jean-Claude Pitrel is corrupt. He collects “fees” from Kidnappers-R-Us, so he’s not likely to hook Bryan up with Saint-Clair. When Jean-Claude comes home he is surprised to find Bryan sitting down to dinner with his wife. This is especially annoying to Jean-Claude as he has an all points out on Bryan. Jean-Claude loses it. He pulls a gun on Bryan, who also has a gun. Bryan shoots Madame Pitrel to get his point across. Madame Pitrel fares better than Marko. She suffers only a grazed arm (Bryan is a marksman nonpareil). Pitrel gets the message.
Saint-Clair lives in a manor. There is a sex slave auction in progress as Bryan breaks in. Bryan kills everyone with his usual panache except for Saint-Clair. Saint-Clair reveals Kim has been transferred to Sheik Raman aboard his yacht. Bryan kills Saint-Clair and heads for the yacht. Bryan boards the yacht, kills everyone on board plus the sheik, rescues Kim and goes home.
Other members of the cast are; Framke Janssen as Lenore Mills; Katie Cassidy as Amanda; Xander Berkeley as Stuart St. John; Leland Orser as Sam Gilroy; Jon Gries as Mark Casey; David Warshofsky as Bernie Harris; Holly Valance as Sheerah; Nicolas Giraud as Peter; Goran Kostic as Gregor; and Jalil Naciri as Ali.
TAKEN was produced by EuropaCorp (Luc Besson). Written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen and directed by Pierre Morel. It was released in the USA in January 2009 and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film grossed $145 million in North America and brought in a worldwide total of $226.8 million.
Films vibrating like TAKEN
DIE HARD (1988)
It sets a high bar for TAKEN. It is replete with super explosions accompanied by helicopter and tank attacks and yes, all kinds of shooting with all kinds of guns.
NYPD detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) flies to Los Angeles on Christmas Eve. He is hoping to make up with his estranged wife Holly Gennero-McClane (Bonnie Bedelia). Holly is attending a Christmas party held in the penthouse offices of her employer, the Nakatomi Corporation. The penthouse is located in the Nakatomi Plaza Tower, a very tall newly constructed building which will never be the same when the party is over.
McCane arrives at the tower in a limo driven by Argyle (De’voreaux White). Argyle tells McClane he will wait in the limo in the Tower garage. While McCane is changing clothes the tower is invaded by the evil Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and his heavily armed takeover team. Hans’ plan is to steal some $640 million in bearer bonds stashed in the Nakatomi vault. Hans murders Joseph Tagaki, President of Nakatomi (James Shigeta), who refuses to give Hans the codes for the vault.
Hans subsequently learns of McClanes’s presence in the building and sends Tony (Andreas Wisniewski) to get rid of McClane. Things don’t work out well for Tony. McClane kills him and takes his weapon and telephone. He uses the phone to contact the LAPD and Sargent Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) comes to investigate. Now the party begins.
McClane initiates the festivities by cooly killing several terrorists and seizing their C-4 with detonators. Powell has arrived and finding nothing awry he is about to leave when McClane drops a dead terrorist on his car. This gets the attention ultimately, of the LAPD, and, wait for it, the FBI. A SWAT team arrives in an armored vehicle and Hans shoots it with a rocket.
McClane dumps C-4 down an elevator shaft, blowing out the front of the building. Hans demands a helicopter to take him and the remainder of his group off the roof. The FBI sends a gunship. McClane kills Hans’ brother and chases the hostages off the roof. This annoys Hans mightily.
Suddenly the roof explodes. Finally, McClane is hanging out with Hans from a window on the umptieth floor. Bad luck, Hans falls to the plaza below. The party’s over. Argyle take McClane and the wife away in the limo. The cleanup is going to be massive but McClane, like Bryan, takes the girl home. Bryan and McClane; now there’s a dynamic duo.
The DIE HARD screenplay was written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza and directed by John McTiernan. It was budgeted at $25-35 million. The box office was $141.5 million.
LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL (1994)
It is also a harbinger of TAKEN, but with a twist. Twelve-year-old Mathilda Lando (Natalie Portman), is rescued by Leon (Jean Reno), who assists her in getting revenge for the murder of her entire family by corrupt DEA agent Norman Stansfield (Gary Oldman). Leon, a lonely, illiterate hitman for mafioso Tony (Danny Aiello), hides her from Stansfield in his apartment.
She discovers he is a hitman and she begs him to train her in weapons. He does so, and in return, she cleans his apartment, runs his errands, and teaches him how to read. Mathilda tells Leon she has a crush on him but they remain platonic. One day Leon learns that Mathilda has packed herself a bag of guns and gone after Stansfield at the DEA office. Mathilda is rescued by Leon, who kills two more of Stansfield’s men. Stansfield and his SWAT team raid Leon’s apartment.
They try to shoot their way in but Leon ambushes them, killing one policeman. As Stansfield and his team regroup, Leon smashes a hole in the apartment wall, opening an air shaft big enough to allow Mathilda to escape. Leon tells her they will meet later at Tony’s cafe and he confesses that he loves her. The police blow up the apartment. In the confusion that follows, Leon escapes, wearing a gas mask and uniform he has taken from the officer he has killed.
He almost escapes in this disguise, but Stansfield has followed him and shoots him in the back. Leon, dying, gives Stansfield a grenade pin saying, “From Mathilda”. Stansfield opens Leon’s police vest and discovers a cluster of live grenades. They explode. Mathilda is avenged. This could be an opera.
THE PROFESSIONAL
It was written and directed by Luc Besson and produced by Patrice Ledoux. It was released in 1994. The budget was set at $16 million and box office brought $46.1 million. Awards include Czech Lion Award, Best Foreign Language Film; the Golden Reel Award Best Sound Editing – Foreign Feature; and seven nominations at the 20th Cesar Awards.
JOHN WICK (2014)
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) seeks revenge on the men who broke into his home, stole his car and killed his puppy, a gift from his deceased wife (the puppy, not the car). The bad men turn out to be Russian gangsters. The leader of the break-in group is Iosef (Alfie Allen), the son of Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist), the head of the Tarazov family, a dubious group of malefactors. Tarasov sends a group of hitmen to Wick’s house and Wick kills all of them and the storm begins, not unlike McClane’s war against Herr Gruber.
Viggo sets a $2 million bounty on the head of Wick, he awards the task to Marcus (Willem Dafoe), a former mentor of Wick. Wick takes refuge in the Continental Hotel in New York, a sanctuary and refuge for its underworld tenants. Marcus refuses to break the rules and attack John on the hotel grounds. Viggo doubles the bounty to anyone willing break this no-kill tabu. John, meanwhile, has not been idle. He evades Viggo, finds Iosef, kills him and many of his associates as well.
John and Viggo have their final sine qua non knife fight. John is injured but Viggo has a mortal wound. The fight takes place on a New York dock, near an animal hospital. John breaks into the hospital for first aid and finds a pit bull puppy which he immediately adopts and they walk off together in the rain. The “girl” in the film is already deceased when the fracas begins but the violent quest and revenge themes have a similar ring to TAKEN.
JOHN WICK was directed by Chad Stahelski and David Leitch together but only Chad received film credit. The screenplay was written by Derek Kolstad. WICK was distributed by Lionsgate and released in the USA on October, 2014. Other cast members are: Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, Dean Winters, Ian McShane, and John Leguizamo.
JOHN WICK earned a worldwide total of $88.8 million. The film was budgeted at $20 t0 $30 million. Critical ratings were mostly B and B+ on a scale of F to A+.
More movies similar to TAKEN
THE GREY (2011)
Some MEN, a lot of WOLVES, ALASKA, OIL, a PLANE CRASH, and WINTER. Spoiler Alert, wolves win (mostly). John Ottway (Liam Neeson, hello!) writes a suicide letter to his wife, Ana (Anne Openshaw) after killing a grey wolf. Later there’s a plane crash with Ottway and seven others. The survivors die off on their way somewhere. Ottway dies fighting mano a mano, with the head wolf. This is a guy movie(kind of).
THE GREY is directed by Joe Carnahan and produced by Ridley Scott, Tony Scott and Liam Neeson. THE GREY opened in Los Angeles in January 2012. It grossed $81.2 million globally. It had a budget of $25 million.
THE EQUALIZER (2014)
Denzel Washington is Bob McCall, a retired US Marine working in a Home Mart store in Boston. One night he befriends Alina (Chloe Grace Moritz), a teen prostitute. Alina is hospitalized after a savage beating from her pimp, Slavi. McCall visits Slavi and kills him and four of his crew. He subsequently battles corrupt police, mafia kingpins, and other lesser types. McCall kills all, even traveling to Moscow to finish the job. Alina is freed from the mob and McCall promotes himself as “The Equalizer”.
THE EQUALIZER opened in 2014 and grossed $101.5 million in North America and $192.3 million around the world. It was directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Richard Went.
THE EDGE OF DARKNESS (2010)
Directed by Martin Campbell, and written by William Monahan and Andrew Bovell is an “action thriller”. It is based on the BBC series of the same name. Mel Gibson stars as a detective investigating the murder of his daughter, a political activist. The film opened in January 2010. It grossed $81 million against a production budget of $80.0 million. It earned a rating of B from critics.
RUN ALL NIGHT (2015)
Another action thriller with Liam Neeson as Jimmy, an ex hitman who goes on the lam with his son after killing the son of a mobster boss. Jimmy cleans up his act but he is killed in the end. His son carries on with a normal existence. Box office was $71.6 million on a budget of $50-61.6 million.
NON-STOP (2014)
Yet another thriller. Liam Neeson again. This time he is a Federal Air Marshal. he must find a killer onboard an international flight who is trying to kill a passenger every twenty minutes. NON-STOP is directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. The story and screenplay are by John W. Richardson, Chris Roach, and Ryan Engle. Distribution was by Universal Pictures.
Producers were Joel Silver, Alex Heineman and Andrew Rona. Grosses were $222.8 million Box Office. Budget for the film was $ 28-50 million.
PRISONERS (2013)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Aaron Guzikowski, the film concerns the abduction of two girls in Pennsylvania. After a suspect is released by police, a father of one of the girls takes matters into home own hands. Stars are Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis and Maria Belo. PRISONERS garnered awards at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival, the Academy Awards, and Chicago Film Festival for BestCinematography. Best Ensemble Performance, Best Original Screenplay and of course Best Thriller. The film earned $61 million in the US and $122.2 million worldwide.
CONTRABAND (2012)
Drugs, counterfeit money, hot paintings, black markets galore and for sure, the Mob. Well, any mob. This is Old School stuff. Chris Farraday, an ex-smuggler gets back into the game to save his brother-in-law, Andy. Andy has dumped nearly a million bucks in drugs into the Mississippi to avoid a Customs inspection.
Andy’s mobster boss threatens to kill him if he doesn’t come up with a $700,000 tout de suite. After a zany fast shuffle of drugs, money, and a Jackson Pollock painting, Chris manages to turn the tables on Andy’s unsavory friends and retire again with $22 million and a waterfront manor. It’s complicated but fun.
CONTRABAND is directed by Baltasar Kormakur and written by Aaron Guzikowski. the stars are Mark Wahlberg, Kate Beckinsdale, Ben Foster, Giovanni Ribisi, caleb Landry Jones and J. K. Simmons. The budget was $25 million and Box Office was $96.3 million.
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN (2009)
The story takes place in Philadelphia. It is directed by F. Gary Gray and written by Kurt Wimmer and it stars Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx. Jamie Foxx, as Nick Rice seeks payback from his family’s killer and whoever is behind a corrupt criminal justice system. Nick finally bombs Clyde, the culprit. No, literally BOMBS him in his prison cell. “Justice is Mine.” Sayeth the Bomb. The budget was $53 million, Box Office $126.7 million. The film was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Action/Thriller Film of the year and received NAACP Image Awards nominations.
GRAN TORINO (2009)
Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood), an ailing Korean War veteran is paranoid about his Hmong Neighbors. The neighborhood, which used to be white working class is now Asian and poor. There is street gang crime and general deterioration. Walt struggles to protect his 1972 Ford Gran Torino, the only thing of value he seems to have. alienated from his family he lives alone with his dog, Daisy.
A Hmong-American boy tries to steal the Torino as part of his initiation into the local gang. Walt manages to thwart the attempt and in time develops a mentoring relationship with the boy. The screenplay is by Nick Schenk, directed by Clint Eastwood. The film was distributed by Warner Brothers Entertainment. The Budget was $25-33 million. The Box Office brought in $270 million.