Liam Nielsen adopts a very Harrison Ford-ish role as a Bryan Mills, a concerned father (who just so happens to be a superspy). We learn that he faces the typical problems of most hard-working men; in his service to his country, his wife has left him for a more worldly, suave man with servants and a mansion. He is unable to connect with his daughter after so many years of loyal service in the CIA (which he reminisces about politely with his fellow ex-spies during a manly cookout) during which the neglect he showed his family drove them away. Consequently, when he buys a karaoke machine (appealing to her childhood dream of stardom), and his daughter's stepfather buys her a pony, he feels inadequate and pathetic.
Conveniently, he finds himself useful soon afterward, as daughter is kidnapped by sleazy Albanian sex traffickers. Even as she hyperventilates in panic and terror, in his rugged and capable voice he instructs her to yell out details on her attackers as she is abducted. While the movie progresses, we see the special "talents" Bryan possesses amount to tracking down bad guys, beating them up and/or killing them, and making nifty torture chambers and triage materials on the fly. As he drives his daughter to the airport, he tells her he was a "preventor," who stopped bad things from happening - but in this movie he does little "preventing" and much "permitting" or "causing."
Through a good deal of investigative work, Bryan eventually discovers where his daughter is, hijacks a car, jumps onto the boat (surprising, as I was expecting him to merely jump the car onto the boat) where a bloated ornate sheik is ready to corrupt her slender young American body. As he holds a knife to her throat, he begins to talk, "We can negotia-" and Bryan puts a bullet between his eyes. Aparently, the plane ride home was very therapeutic, because Bryan's daughter hugs him twice and then hops in a car with her mother and (wealthier) father-in-law. We then see Bryan taking his daughter to meet a pop star for singing lessons before the movie ends.
Analysis:
Bryan's quest in this movie is a reaffirmation of purpose - he gave up his job to be with his family, who ironically left him, and when his daughter is in danger, it is only by taking up the role he left behind. He draws power from the theme of "a father's love" and that of an American dealing with shady foreigners (concepts explored in earlier Harrison Ford films like Frantic, Airforce One, Firewall, Patriot Games and Mel Gibson movies like Ransom and Edge of Darkness). He is desperately trying to regain his lost masculinity by asserting himself in the only role he knows; that of a tough-as-nails, ruthless CIA man, who fights for justice. After all, what can be more noble than a father's search for his missing daughter? He is the literal defender of her virginity in this film.
Though, as I said, few of his actions could be construed as preventative or defensive. Bryan murders about 35 people in the film, between leaving his daughter's kidnapper screaming in a chair wired with electricity, to shooting a bourgeois man in the face as he dumbly calls their sex trafficking operation "just business." Of course, his vigilance is understandable, but vigilante pre-meditated murder is only really legal in Texas (and appropriately for this film, uncountable CIA targeted killings around the globe as well).
Bryan's behavior also echoes familiar overtones of the US foreign policy of "don't-get-in-my-way." When Bryan discovers an old French government friend is involved in the trafficking business, he drops by and shoots his friend's wife during dinner, after they've put the children to bed. Granted, he does tell his friend to ask the wife for his forgiveness, but not before he snarls how it would have never happened if the Frenchman had cared more about Bryan's daughter than the dirty money he received from the traffickers. In this exchange is perhaps a subtle reflection of the anti-French sentiment in the US following their opposition to the second gulf war.
Ultimately, the film teaches us how violence is necessary when your daughter's life and purity is on the line, and everyone else is an "other." The stereotypical foreigners who stand in the way must be met with bullets. Other fathers watching from the curtains as their daughter's date comes and goes have likely felt the same. The absurdity of the situation which calls for Bryan to leap from a bridge and land on the perverted Arabs pleasure yacht is lost beneath the timeliness of the issue of trafficking, and the age old protective nature of fathers. Yet just as the faceless thugs who die have meaningless lives, so do the sex slaves Bryan passes up while searching for his daughter. He comes across her friend in a house he is searching, finds her dead, and methodically moves on. He rescues one girl so that he can find where she received a sweater previously owned by his daughter. And at the end, two girls are ready in white for the obese sheik, but we only see his daughter saved.
Summary:
Taken is another macho romp through exotic locales with lots of bodies that fall by the wayside, like Collateral Damage, or Clear and Present Danger, but it combines the combat overtones with personal and family issues. Like the slew of films that came out in the 90s dealing with the neglect of families by chief-breadwinners who were too tired to play with their kids when they got home from their job, Taken revisits that family a decade or so later. Bryan is ready to be a responsible father, but his wife is so dang testy. And his daughter is so darn irresponsible! But this didn't stop him from leaving Beirut during a covert operation to be at her birthday party, and it won't stop him from being concerned about her wild tour through Europe with U2, which fortunately turns into a chance for dad to flex his muscles. Irresponsible women, he thinks! In this film, they are all divorcees, cute teenagers, and sex zombies (except for his French friend's wife, who's apparently a brainless target).
In the end, everything is a-ok, because his daughter is able to meet a popular singer and pursue her dreams of being an entertainer. Meanwhile, Interpol is still looking for a man who went on a violent rampage through Paris which exposed several trafficking rings to French officials. And we are left wondering, what does Bryan love more; his daughter? Or the icy demeanor he posses through which reality floats past his eyes, blood spills through his hands, as his daughter laughingly rushes in the opposite direction? Most likely, he's left with haunting words his wife spits at him through botox lips in a rare moment of truth; "You've made a mess of your life in the service of your country."
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