Category: Film Analysis – Taken
7. Daddy’s Little Girl. . .No More
“I love you, Dad” has a different ring to it now. It is sober, profound, and knowing. Kim said this to Bryan during an embrace with him outside the LAX (Los Angeles International) Airport as they departed following a busy 96 hours of him raging through Paris to find and rescue her from the traffickers.…
6. I Spit On Your Grave
Bryan finally found Marko and brought him back to an isolated spot where he had him all to himself to torture for information. Marko was a spitter. He spat in Bryan’s face each time Bryan asked him a question about the whereabouts of Kim. Bryan simply wiped the spit, shoved a cloth in Marko’s mouth,…
5. The State
Jean-Claude said that the Albanians showed up “from the east six or seven years ago”, at which time there were only about 20 of them. Now they were in their hundreds. By this stage, the French government is aware of their presence. Sam had reported that the traffickers initially trafficked women from emerging Eastern European…
4. The Honey Trap
Peter was no singer. His rendition of ‘California Girls‘ by The Beach Boys was an assault on the senses of immense proportions. Considerately, he did not attempt to sing the whole song and only stuck to singing the chorus, once. Still, it worked a charm on Amanda and Kim, who lapped it up and readily…
3. Mother Dearest
Kim’s mother, Lenore, wants her daughter to see a bit of the world before becoming locked in a marriage with an eventual absentee husband while raising a child by herself, as had happened to her. She might have been happy in marriage to Bryan once and may have remained so if he had been a…
2. Playing Fast and Loose
Kim’s friend, Amanda, is loose. At 19 years of age, she is unhesitatingly inviting of Peter, the honey-trap who latched on to the girls at the French airport and followed them back to the apartment where they were staying in France. She jumps at the idea of joining him for a party later and readily…
1. That Gives Me a Year to Find Her
The film opens with a video of a girl and her mom in the kitchen during the girl’s 5th-year birthday party. You are reminded of the opening scene to ‘Law Abiding Citizen’, showing Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) and his daughter, also five years old, enjoying quality time together. There are subtle differences, however. In Taken,…
Taken: A Raw Reaction to Taken (2008) – Summaries
1. That Gives Me a Year To Find Her The opening establishes Bryan Mills as a father haunted by memories of his daughter’s early childhood and burdened by years of emotional distance. His insecurity is amplified by the presence of Kim’s wealthy stepfather, whose gifts and stability overshadow Bryan’s attempts at reconnection. His friends’ cynicism…
Taken (2008): A Study of Fear, Power, and the Modern Action Fantasy
Introduction Taken opens with the idea that Bryan Mills is a portrait of a man shaped by loss, regret, and a desperate need to reclaim relevance in a world that has moved on without him. His marriage has dissolved, his daughter has grown beyond his reach, and his professional identity has evaporated into the anonymity…
