Taken - B

Liam Neeson is Bryan Mills (!), a former Black-Ops CIA agent whose marriage to Famke Jansen went south because of his job. He retires in Los Angeles to rebuild a relationship with his 17 year old daughter (Maggie Grace). He’s the kind of guy who isn’t pleasant to be around because he overanalyzes and worries about everything and never relaxes. But he’s just the guy you need when the fit hits the shan. It does here when his daughter travels to Paris with another teenage girl and they are almost immediately kidnapped. Good thing he was on the phone with her at the time so he can use some clues to track down the bad guys and a) shoot them to death, b) torture them to death, c) stab them to death, or d) beat them to death . . .Neeson is perfect at controlling his rage with his intelligence. The trail to his daughter is coincidental and sometimes far-fetched, but he believes it and makes you believe it, too. His larger than life presence and stature has been seen before, but his athleticism surprises. Jansen is completely wasted in a thinly written role, but Leland Orser has some nice scenes early on as one of Neeson’s former associates/friends. The story is straightforward, but kind of brilliant in its simplicity, with no ridiculous twists or double-crossings that have become overused in the last decade. But the film falters due to credibility issues. First and foremost, how the hell does he get back to LA at the end? Screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen should have had his former French ally continue to help him rather than become another adversary. It would have filled nearly all the plot holes and all they would have had to adjust is the observation that you get weaker sitting behind a desk, pushing pencils (which could have easily been added somewhere else). Even John McClane needed a sidekick.The action set-ups (and there's really nothing else) are first-rate, technically proficient and exciting. It’s quite a visceral experience, especially when Neeson confronts the Albanians (my favorite scene). To fully enjoy it, it probably helps if you’re a dude, especially one with a daughter. Like last year's Rambo, it's a tremendous adrenaline rush and never wastes a second of its running time. It's the kind of movie that makes people fall in love with the movies in the first place. B