Theater: "Taken" steals the show

I'll open with the obvious: Taken's plot has been done before. Man of Fire (the original and the remake), The Limey, Get Carter - even Hardcore borders on the same premise: someone goes missing and a bad-ass breaks medieval on all who stand in his way to finding her.

But recycled plots do not mean the film is poorer for it; look how many times the whole wayward tourists has been done, the vampire love story, or the penitent assassin. The question is whether it's done well, and in Taken's case, the answer is an emphatic Yes.

Liam Neeson is an ex-007 type who's trying to reconnect with his daughter, but when she's kidnapped while on vacation in Europe, Neeson has to conjure all his past experience to track her down and make those behind it pay.

Neeson's character, Bryan, is not warm and fuzzy, nor is he the tragic hero a la Washington's character in the aforementioned Man of Fire remake, but your heart and mind are invariably with him from the very beginning as he's the only one who can see the forest for the trees. The film does this well - where the viewer can see things coming much like Neeson sees them, but like other characters cannot. That's not to say there aren't twists: any film with as many Mexican stand-offs is bound to surprise you at some point.

Mostly, I think Taken appeals because we would all like to believe that there is someone out there who cares about us enough to make the kinds of life and death sacrifices and decisions that Neeson makes, or that we ourselves would be willing to make those decisions and take those actions if the ones we love were in the same grave danger.

Either way, it's easy to identify with the passion and desperation in the film, making the non-stop action that much more compelling. While not so full of visuals to mandate a viewing in the theater, this is one you're not going to miss.