Taken (2008)
- Pierre Morel originally wanted a completely different ending for the film, but test audiences preferred the one we see today.
- The incredible score for Taken was composed in just a few weeks after the original composer dropped out.
- Many of the practical effects used in the climax were achieved without any CGI.
Taken is a 2008 French action thriller directed by Pierre Morel and co-written by Luc Besson. Liam Neeson stars as Bryan Mills, a retired CIA operative who has sacrificed his marriage and relationship with his 17-year-old daughter Kim to serve his country. When Kim travels to Paris and is kidnapped by an Albanian human trafficking ring, Mills unleashes the full extent of his "particular set of skills" to rescue her within a 96-hour window before she disappears forever into the global sex trade.
Taken was a career-redefining moment for Liam Neeson, who was 56 at the time of filming and had been known primarily as a dramatic actor. His phone call to the kidnappers โ "I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you" โ became one of the most quoted and parodied lines in modern action cinema and single-handedly transformed Neeson into an action star for a new generation. The film's lean 90-minute runtime and ruthlessly efficient pacing, moving from kidnapping to rescue with minimal downtime, established a template for the elder-statesman action thriller that generated numerous imitators.
Pierre Morel's kinetic direction brought the chase through Paris's underbelly to visceral life. Taken earned $226 million worldwide on a $25 million budget, a massive return that launched a franchise and established the "Liam Neeson action movie" as a reliable genre unto itself.
