Movie Review: Taken

A great deal of the allure in "Taken" comes from the wild juxtaposition of its premise: the idea of Liam Neeson - esteemed, acclaimed, 56-year-old Liam Neeson - kicking all kinds of butt in a Euro B-revenge thriller.

Yes, Pierre Morel's film moves with breathlessly incessant fluidity and speed; that's a given from the director of the French action flick "District B13," working from a script co-written by Luc Besson, for whom this sort of trashy adventure is his baguette and butter. But cast someone you've never heard of in the lead role - someone who didn't receive an Oscar nomination for playing Oskar Schindler, for example - and it might not have worked nearly so well.

Neeson seems to be having a blast, too, unleashing chaos as former CIA operative Bryan Mills. Bryan's been trying to live a quiet life in Los Angeles, where he's moved to be closer to his 17-year-old daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), whom he neglected for years while he was out tracking baddies around the globe. (Grace, the former "Lost" star, seems lost herself at 25 playing a teen.)

Kim and her mom, Bryan's ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen), talk Bryan into allowing her to travel to Paris with a girlfriend. He's reluctant - he knows what dangers lurk in those seemingly glamorous streets! - but he eventually gives in, only to discover that she and her pal are actually planning to travel all across Europe following the U2 tour.

But when Kim and her girlfriend get kidnapped, Bryan must dash over there to prevent a group of Albanian goons from selling her into sex slavery. It's all sordid and unseemly but if you can get past that, "Taken" is also unexpectedly fun in a guilty-pleasure sort of way. Bryan is inordinately violent for a guy his age but he's also got a MacGyver-like resourcefulness.

For example, because he happened to be on the phone with Kim when she was abducted, he's able to piece together not only where she was but the ethnicity of the people who took her. His use of a walkie-talkie and a cell phone in an elaborate rooftop bait-and-switch is also amusing.

It's a whole lot of nonsense and bluster that will, of course, end well - but not before a Saudi sheik's yacht is shot to bits and an untold number of bloodied bodies lay strewn all over the City of Lights. Mindless? Sure. But at least it's mindlessly entertaining - and, blissfully, brief.

MOVIE REVIEW

Taken **½

MOVIE BOARD RATING: PG-13; intense sequences of violence, disturbing thematic material, sexual content, some drug references and language

STARS: Liam Neeson, Famke Jannsen, Maggie Grace

DIRECTOR: Pierre Morel

LOCATION: See movie times, Page 11, for local showtimes.

PLOT SUMMARY: A former CIA agent hunts down the men who kidnapped his daughter in Paris

RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes

ON THE WEB: www.takenmovie.com