273. Taken (01)

Title: Taken
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
Year: 2009

Summary: Former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency operative Bryan Mills tries to have a closer relationship with his teenage daughter, Kim. She lives with her mother, Lenore, and her wealthy stepfather, Stuart in California. While working as security with former colleagues, Bryan saves pop star Sheerah from an assailant after a concert. Sheerah, grateful, agrees to tutor Kim after Bryan says she aspires to be a singer. Kim asks Bryan for permission to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda. Bryan balks at the two girls travelling alone, but relents when Lenore complains that he is overprotective. He gives Kim an international cellphone, and makes her promise to call every day. At Los Angeles International Airport, he learns that the girls are not staying in Paris, but are following U2 during their European tour.

Arriving in Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, Kim and Amanda meet Peter, a scout for a kidnapping gang, who offers to share a cab with them. At the apartment, Kim discovers that Amanda's cousins, with whom they are staying, are in Spain. While talking to Bryan on the phone in the bathroom, Kim sees Amanda being kidnapped by intruders. Bryan instructs her to go to the nearest room and hide under a bed. He explains that when the men find her, she has to shout out their physical descriptions. Kim is pulled out violently from under the bed, and she complies with her father's instructions before the phone is found and destroyed.

Bryan informs Stuart and Lenore of their daughter's kidnapping. Bryan's former colleague Sam tells him that based on the recording, Kim has probably been taken by an Albanian human trafficking ring that has recently begun abducting female tourists. He also says that if she is not rescued within ninety-six hours, she will likely never be found. Bryan travels to Paris, and finds Peter at the airport attempting to lure another tourist. After a confrontation and chase, Peter is hit and killed by a passing truck before Bryan can interrogate him.

Bryan then seeks out Jean-Claude, a former French intelligence officer who now works a desk job. Jean-Claude is relatively unhelpful but does direct Bryan to a district where an East European gang are prostituting women. Jean-Claude afterwards has the police put a tail on Bryan and soon warns Bryan that his vigilante methods will result in him getting deported, but Bryan avoids arrest. Bryan follows one gangster to a brothel at a construction site, where he finds a girl wearing Kim's jacket. He fights off the brothel guards and escapes with the girl. After the girl awakens, she gives Bryan enough information about the house where she met Kim to allow him to find it.

Bryan confronts the Albanians, and identifies the kidnapper on the phone as Marko. He wounds Marko and kills the others. Searching the house, he finds several captive teens, including Amanda, who is dead from an apparent overdose. In the basement of the house, Bryan straps Marko into a makeshift electric chair and tortures him into divulging Kim's location; as a virgin, she was very valuable on the black market, and was sold to an auctioneer named Patrice Saint-Clair. Bryan leaves Marko to die, and visits Jean-Claude at home. Having deduced that Jean-Claude is taking kickbacks from the kidnappers, he extracts Saint-Clair's home address by threatening to kill his wife.

Bryan infiltrates Saint-Clair's mansion, where a large party is the facade for an auction of girls in the basement. Bryan forces a Middle Eastern bidder to purchase his daughter, but is captured after they exit the room. Bryan frees himself and kills Saint-Clair's henchmen. He forces Saint-Clair to reveal where Kim has been taken before killing him. Bryan races the luxury yacht owned by Raman, a sheikh, and boards it. There, he kills the boat's guards, confronts the sheikh in his boudoir, and shoots him in the head, rescuing his daughter. They return to the U.S. where she is reunited with her mother and stepfather. Afterward, Bryan takes Kim to see Sheerah for her first singing lesson.