“Taken” will take your breath away

By Morgan Hodder.
While “Taken” conforms to the archetypal “revenge story” structure, it’s executed in a fashion that seems too good for the genre. Luc Besson, writer and producer of “Taken” and “Leon: The Professional” is an artist skilled at creating flicks about multi-dimensional characters. Though the protagonist of “Taken” is thoroughly bad ass, the character’s vulnerability and humanity shines through, thus adding the sincere poetic quality typical to Besson’s action films,
The main character, Bryan Mills, is an ex-CIA agent who is initially hesitant to permit his 17-year-old daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), to visit Paris with a girl friend. His ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen), coldly explains to him that his overprotective nature is pushing his daughter away from him.