Taken

Stars: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Xander Berkeley, Olivier Rabourdin, Katie Cassidy

Director: Pierre Morel

A Charles Bronson vehicle 30 years on. And it's a good, if very violent action flick. There's the occasional giggle in the script, but by golly it doesn't hang about.

Liam Neeson slips easily into the black leather jacket and brings a smidgen of humanity to the role of the former government enforcer whose 17-year-old daughter (Grace) is kidnapped by Albanian sex-slave traders while in Paris on a holiday - to which her father, estranged from her mother (Janssen) thanks to the all-consuming work from which he has recently retired, has reluctantly agreed.

Tracking down the Albanians with remarkable ease, Neeson embarks on a bone-cracking, neck-breaking one-man war that involves corrupt French police, and ends on a palatial yacht on the Seine.

Nuff said. People who like this kind of thing, as an ex-colleague of mine was fond of saying, will find that this is the kind of thing they like. Despite torture scenes, the only disturbing thing about the film is that there might be a grain of truth in its story. Moral: do not kidnap daughters of men who are 6ft 5in tall and wear black leather jackets.

David Quinlan

USA/France 2007. UK Distributor: 20th Century Fox. Colour by Eclair/deluxe.
94 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 1, Swearing 1.

Review date: 23 Sep 2008