Taken (also titled 96 Hours and The Hostage) is a 2008 action-thriller film written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, and directed by Pierre Morel. It stars Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Katie Cassidy, Leland Orser, and Holly Valance. Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a former CIA operative who sets about tracking down his teenage daughter Kim (Grace) and her best friend Amanda (Cassidy) after the two girls are kidnapped by Albanian human traffickers while traveling in France during a vacation.

Taken was released in France on 27 February 2008 by EuropaCorp, and later in the United States on 30 January 2009 by 20th Century Fox. The movie grossed more than $226 million. Despite mixed reviews from critics, numerous media outlets cited the film as a turning point in Neeson s career that redefined and transformed him to an action film star. The first film in the Taken franchise, the film was followed by two sequels—Taken 2 and Taken 3—released in 2012 and 2014, respectively. A television series premiered in 2017 on NBC, with Clive Standen portraying a younger Bryan Mills.

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Former Green Beret and CIA officer Bryan Mills attempts to build a closer relationship with his 17-year-old daughter, Kim, who lives with her mother (his ex-wife) Lenore, and her wealthy stepfather, Stuart. While overseeing security at a concert for pop star Sheerah, Bryan saves her from a knife-wielding attacker. Out of gratitude, Sheerah offers to have Kim assessed as a singer, which she first rebuffed when Bryan initially mentioned Kim s ambition. Before Bryan can tell her about the offer, Kim asks him for permission to travel to Paris with her best friend, Amanda. He initially refuses, concerned about her safety, but eventually gives in. At the airport, Bryan learns that Kim lied; the girls are actually planning to follow U2 during their European tour.

Upon arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Kim and Amanda meet Peter, a handsome young stranger who offers to share a taxi. Kim and Amanda go to Amanda s cousins apartment, where Kim finds out that the cousins are in Spain. After answering a call from Bryan, Kim sees men enter the apartment and abduct Amanda. When she is dragged out from hiding, she yells a description of her abductor, following her father s instructions. Bryan hears someone breathing on the phone and tells the listener that he will not pursue the kidnappers if they release his daughter, but warns them that failure to do so will result in their deaths.[8] The listener only replies "good luck" and terminates the call.

Sam, an old friend and former colleague of Bryan, deduces that the kidnappers are part of an Albanian sex trafficking ring and identifies the listener as mob boss Marko Hoxha. Based on previous history, Kim must be found within 96 hours or she will likely be lost forever. Bryan flies to Paris, breaks into the apartment, and finds Peter s reflection in a picture on Kim s phone. He finds Peter at the airport, trying to charm a female traveler, and tries to capture him. While fleeing, Peter is run over and killed by an oncoming truck. With his only lead dead, Bryan turns to an old contact, former French intelligence agent Jean-Claude Pitrel, who now has a desk job. Jean-Claude informs him of the local red-light district, where the Albanian prostitution ring operates, but warns him not to get involved. Bryan searches a makeshift brothel in a construction yard and rescues a drugged young woman who has Kim s denim jacket. After a gunfight and high-speed chase with the brothel s operators, Bryan takes the woman to a hotel, where he improvises her detoxification.

The next morning, the woman tells Bryan of a house where she and Kim were kept. Posing as Jean-Claude, Bryan enters the house under the pretense of renegotiating the police protection rate. When he identifies Marko Hoxha by tricking him into repeating the same phrase, the meeting erupts into a fight which results in the deaths of several gangsters except Marko. After finding several heavily drugged girls and Amanda s body, Bryan tortures Marko with electricity. Marko reveals that virgins like Kim have high value in the black market and are quickly sold, before identifying the buyer as Patrice Saint-Clair. Bryan leaves Marko to die from continuous electrocution and visits Jean-Claude s apartment that evening. Having discovered Jean-Claude s corruption, Bryan wounds the latter s wife to coerce him into disclosing Saint-Clair s location, before knocking him out.

Bryan infiltrates a covert sex slave auction taking place beneath Saint-Clair s manor, where Kim is the subject of the last sale. Bryan forces Ali, one of the bidders, to purchase her, but is subsequently caught and knocked out. When Saint-Clair learns who he is, he orders his henchmen to kill him, but Bryan breaks loose and kills them all. Saint-Clair reveals that Kim was sold to a sheikh named Raman and taken to his yacht before Bryan executes him. Bryan pursues the yacht and eliminates the bodyguards, including Ali, before he finds Raman in his suite, where he is holding Kim at knifepoint. When Raman attempts to negotiate, Bryan kills him with a headshot. Back in the United States, Bryan surprises Kim by taking her to see Sheerah.