Film / Taken (Film Series)

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Taken is a series of French action thriller films starring Liam Neeson and produced and written by Luc Besson; the first movie, released in 2008, was directed by Pierre Morel, and the sequels by Olivier Megaton. It also received a prequel television series.

• Taken (2008)
• Taken 2 (2012)
• Taken 3 (2015)
• Taken (2017)

Not related to the Alien Abduction Miniseries Steven Spielberg Presents Taken.

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. What I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will trope you."

• America Saves the Day:
  • An American Retired Badass puts a whole terrorist sex slavery ring operating in Paris on its knees in just three days, while several people from the French authorities are revealed to be complicit in the trafficking. Less of an example than most in that the grudge is personal, and bringing the ring down is more a side effect of Bryan's actual goal of rescuing his daughter.
  • In the second film, the Turkish police are explicitly shown to be working with the Albanian terrorists, or at least some of them are.
• Anti-Hero: Bryan, who is an Unscrupulous Hero.
• Arc Words: "I will find you," which, after the first movie, is mentioned with variations in the next two ("We will find him," "You would find them," etc.).
• Artistic License – Law: Most real life Human Traffickers avoid targeting women from rich countries, such as Kim and Amanda, because it would attract too much media and police attention. Rather, they target poor and destitute women from developing countries, including Albania, and traffick them to richer countries.
• Badass Boast: And not just Bryan's iconic threat on phone from the first film!
  • When Bryan talks to Jean-Claude:
    Jean-Claude: You can't just go around tearing up Paris-
    Bryan: I will tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to!
  • From the sequel:
    "This is not a game. I will finish this thing. You'll just have to die."
• Badass Longcoat: In some of the publicity shots and part of Bryan's outfit for much of the first film.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Bryan is an ex-special forces soldier who tortured people in the past (which is where he learned his "technique"), is merciless toward his enemies, and carries through threats on innocent people on more than one occasion (especially in Taken 3). His main opponents include sex-slavers and terrorists, a pair of professions not exactly known for being all that sympathetic.
• Chekhov's Gun: When Bryan is on the plane to France, he is shown listening to the "Good luck" line over and over again. At the time, it just seems like an obsession. When he finds the Albanian slavers, he pretends to be someone in cahoots with them, and asks them to if they maybe could help translate a Albanian phrase for him, which just so happens to mean "Good luck". He then reveals that he has memorized the voice, and makes a special point to kill that one last.
• Combat Pragmatist: Let's see: aiming for the nuts 90% of the time, playing dead in a shoot-out, shooting someone in the back, shooting someone who let their guard down for one microsecond just to talk, aiming for the head in a hostage standoff, the list goes on...Bryan takes every advantage and dirty trick.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Bryan cleans house with the mooks (barring The Dragon). Considering who he is, it makes sense.
• Damsel in Distress: Kim in the first movie, and Lenore in the sequel, both being the relatives of Bryan kidnapped by the respective films' antagonists (aside from Bryan himself in the latter case).
• Despotism Justifies the Means / Dystopia Justifies the Means: While not stated in the movies, ALL the villains believe in this in every variation.
• Determinator: By the end of the first movie, Bryan has a bullet wound, multiple knife wounds, been beaten in fisticuffs pretty badly by the sheik's Dragon, and most likely has a broken ankle, and still manages to massacre every Mook on the yacht. And that's just the last action sequence. Adrenaline's a hell of a drug.
• Disposable Woman:
  • The first film's whole plot revolves around this; the reason Kim exists is so that she can be kidnapped, giving Bryan an excuse to show what a badass he is. Meanwhile, Amanda's purpose is to be killed in order to show that the bad guys are monsters and thus how important it is for Bryan to find Kim ASAP.
  • Lenore lives until Taken 3, wherein her murder is what sends Bryan on a third and last quest for vengeance.
  • The TV series has Bryan's younger sister Cali, who's killed in the very first episode.
• Divorce Is Temporary: While averted in the first film, this trope is in full force in the sequels between Bryan and Lenore.
• The Dragon:
  • Ali to Sheik Raman in the first movie. On top of being the Sheik's head bodyguard and representative at the terrorist sex slave auction, he gives Bryan a good fight, inflicting several wounds on the latter before he's able to go after the Sheik.
  • Oleg Malankov to Stuart in the third movie.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • In the first movie:
    • Jean-Claude has a wife and children, which is exploited to get information from him not only by Bryan in this movie, but also the Albanians in the sequel.
    • Patrice St. Clair mentions to Bryan that he's a family man.
  • This causes problems galore for Bryan in the sequel — most (if not all) of the Albanian men he previously killed turn out to have families and friends also working in criminal businesses, and they are pissed off about their deaths.
• Evil Old Folks:
  • Sheik Raman in the first movie.
  • A good number of the Albanians seen in the second film are elders, given that many are mentioned to have adult children or grandchildren.
• Evil Plan: In the first film, it was a routine sex trafficking operation that just happened to piss off a Papa Wolf. The plan from the second movie is about revenge on said Papa Wolf, and the third one involves framing him for a murder.
• Expy: The first movie has been compared with 24.
  • Bryan comes off very similar to Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell: Conviction, and the film was released in Ubisoft's native France in 2008, and the US in 2009. SCC came out the next year, and shares elements such as parts of the fighting style, and the plot of a Papa Wolf seeking his daughter and happening upon a major criminal plot on the way.
  • The music used in the action scenes of the sequel sounds like John Powell's compositions for The Bourne Series.
• Family Man: Bryan is a father who loves his family; that's why he doesn't hesitate to kill every last scumbag who kidnapped or killed (his ex-wife in the third movie) their family members.
• Father's Quest: Bryan has to go on a mission to rescue his daughter from a human trafficking ring that had taken her and her friend on their trip to Europe. Being a CIA agent with a "particular set of skills" certainly helps.
• First Father Wins:
  • Averted in the first movie. Bryan's disconnect with Kim is summed up in the opening scene, where he watches a Happier Home Movie of her, and he continues to largely stay away from her after all the following events.
  • Bryan definitely wins in the sequels, though.
• Flipping the Bird: When Bryan takes down one of the warehouses harbouring kidnapped women, while searching for his daughter and finding a girl wearing Kimmy's jacket; he takes the time to flip off the remaining bad guys and the French Police department investigating the explosion, while driving.
• Generic Ethnic Crime Gang: The first two movies feature a pair of different Albanian organized crime rings, with the presence of relatives between them. The first one is a component of the larger sex trafficking ring in Paris, while the second one is more of a conglomerate.
• Girl of the Week: While it doesn't last long due to there being three movies, every film from Taken 2 onwards gives Kim a new boyfriend with little screentime.
• Good Is Not Soft: Bryan is well-mannered and doesn't like confrontation, but will rip your fucking head off if you mess with his family. It gets to the point that some of the methods Bryan employs to achieve his goals would make him an Anti-Villain if not for the righteousness of his cause.
  Bryan: [to Jean-Claude] Tell me what I need, or the last thing you'll see before I make your children orphans is the bullet I put between [your wife's] eyes!
• Grievous Bottley Harm:
  • Used in the first film's climactic fight on Sheik Raman's boat, where Bryan and Ali resort to hitting each other with a variety of bottles and glasses from a cupboard.
  • In the sequel's living room fight, one of the Albanians throws a bottle he was drinking from at Bryan.
• Hero Insurance: In all three movies, Bryan causes a considerable amount of death and property destruction. In the first film, he tortures and/or murders a few unarmed bad guys in cold blood; he also shoots an innocent woman just to get information from her husband. In the third film, he escapes from police custody and abducts a motorist on a roadway at gunpoint for a ride into town. Kim joins in on the second movie by detonating hand grenades on multiple rooftops.
• Idiot Ball: It's a wonder social services didn't come around to take Kim away from Lenore. It takes a particular kind of parental incompetence to encourage your (recently turned) 17-year-old daughter to travel overseas across another continent with only one person she knows along with others she's not even the slightest bit familiar with and call out her overprotective father for even mentioning how this could go wrong.
• I'll Kill You!: Bryan swears to kill the sex traffickers, and for damned good reason.
• Innocent Bystander: In the first film, Bryan shoots and wounds Jean-Claude's wife, even though she had nothing to do with Kim's kidnapping. In the sequel, one of the mooks murders a random hotel guest after barging into the wrong room.
• It's Personal:
  • This exchange from the first movie:
    Patrice: (panting) Please understand... It was all business... It wasn't personal...
    Bryan: It was all personal to me! (*BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG*)
  • In Taken 2:
    • Did Bryan seriously think that the Albanians he saw as complete scumbags in the first film wouldn't have families who would want to avenge their deaths?
    • And the other way around too: Did said families believe that Bryan simply takes things lying down? That he won't rip through all of the Mooks just to find Lenore?
• I Will Find You: Bryan never says this to his daughter, and the search is on fast forward, but Bryan still tears Paris a new asshole in service of this trope. And he does the same in Istanbul to find his ex-wife.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique:
  • Oh, the first movie's Electric Torture.
    Bryan: I need you to be focused! (stabs nails into Marko's thighs) Are you focused yet?
  • The vengeful Albanians torture Jean-Claude this way in the sequel.
  • In the third movie, after capturing Stuart, Bryan goes straight into waterboarding.
• Jerkass:
  • In addition to being brutal sex traffickers, many of the Albanian kidnappers in the first film are arrogant misogynistic sods, especially in comparison to the slave sellers and buyers, or even the Albanians seen in Taken 2.
  • Averted with Stuart — despite his stock role as the husband of the hero's arrogant ex, the filmmakers cleverly resisted the obvious choice of making him a berk, and in the first film he lends his hand to Bryan as best as he can with the situation, unlike Lenore. That's not to say he wasn't going to turn out evil, however. In Taken 3, Stuart is the one who orchestrates Lenore's murder, and he threatens to kill Kim as well.
• Jitter Cam: Thankfully not to the extent of The Bourne Series, but yeah.
• Meaningful Name: Lenore is named after the lost woman from "The Raven". In the first film, she's "lost" in that they're divorced and she's remarried. In the sequel, she's kidnapped and Bryan must rescue her. In the third, she's murdered.
• Mook Horror Show: Bryan takes down, by various means, Mooks, and mooks, and more mooks, and, just for a change of pace, even more mooks throughout the course of the series. The worst (from the standpoint of the mook in question) is in the first film, when Bryan tortures him with electricity, leaving the current on as he departs.
• ...which typically results in a Mook Horror Show as Mills hunts them down one by one.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: There's 50 mooks between you and your daughter/ex-wife, better get started.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Fist Fight:
  • In the first movie:
    • The stalker who attempted to attack pop star Sheerah.
    • Subverted when Ali, after bringing out a knife, is only defeated subsequent to wounding Bryan some. This is justified in that, unlike the aforementioned stalker, Ali used a special knife with tremendous skills.
  • The toughest Albanian at the end of the sequel.
• Nominal Hero: Bryan may actually be a step below Anti-Hero, considering that he is motivated purely by the rescue of his daughter, and is completely willing to do whatever it takes to save her, including torturing Jean-Claude's wife and threatening to make his children orphans. He only seems mildly disturbed by the sex ring itself and rescues a sex slave from it to get info. Chances are the utter carnage Bryan left behind gives a trail for French authorities to save them. Based on the conversations with his friends about his CIA past, he may have done some outright villainous things in his career, though that is left to speculation.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Even though Bryan Mills is supposed to be an American, he speaks with an Ulster accent much like his actor Liam Neeson.
• Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation: It's never exactly stated what was Bryan's former occupation back when he was in the US government, even in the TV series.
  • His conversations with his buddies and former co-workers implies any combination of wet work, special forces, or intelligence work.
  • At one point, Kim admits she was afraid to ask what he did, and all he told her was "a preventer." A "preventer" of the type known in the movies to inhabit Langley, Virginia would seem to be a safe assumption.
  • Bryan's friends also reference a previous mission where "the chief" went missing. "Chief" is sometimes short for Chief Petty Officer, an NCO rank in the Navy, suggesting that Bryan was a former Navy SEAL. Chief also means, well, chief; lots of intelligence agencies have a type of position called station chief or section chief. Given the reference to aforementioned Langley, it's arguable Bryan was part of the CIA's Special Activities Division.
• Old Soldier: It's never specified how old Bryan is, but Liam Neeson was pushing 60 in the first film, and was 63 by the time Taken 3 came out; Bryan's age is mentioned to be a factor, but he can still waste a dozen villains half his age without breaking a sweat, and it's only near the very end of the movie that he starts visibly feeling the strain.
• One-Man Army: The main character goes through an underground terrorist sex-trafficking crime ring (and their relatives in the sequel) the same way Leon Kennedy goes through a Spanish peasant village.
  • It's practically a meme these days to call this film "that movie where Liam Neeson kills half of Europe".
  • Explained a bit with Bryan's backstory: He served with the CIA as a "Preventer" (apparently some sort of well-trained CIA spook) and special forces prior to that.
• One Riot, One Ranger: Justified due to Bryan's very narrow window of opportunity against the various antagonists, and the particular set of skills that he possesses. That said, he does get specialized assistance from time to time, such as the Albanian translator or Stuart hiring the jet to get him to Paris.
• Papa Wolf: Bryan is absolutely savage when it comes to keeping his daughter safe, as well as his ex-wife later on. All those other tropes on this page having "Trope Name: The Movie"? They're not; the first movie is "Papa Wolf: The Movie". The second should be called "War of The Papa Wolves," and the third can be named "The Papa Wolf's Last Stand."
• Parental Neglect: Bryan used to be neglectful to Kim because he was busy in the CIA, which is why Lenore divorced him, though it's clear that he does feel guilty about it.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Bryan does this a lot. In fact, the films' general message is that sometimes it's necessary for The Hero to do bad things to bring down bad people.
• Product Placement: Bryan drives an Audi in the first film and commandeers a Mercedes in the second. Also, Kim is seen using an iPhone and Skype in the sequel. In the credits of Taken 2, there's a lengthy list of brands and products, some in logo form.
• Retired Badass: Bryan is a former CIA operative and this is where his particular set of skills come from.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Both of the first two films have this as its premise, as Bryan tears through every bastard in his way to rescue his daughter (in the first film) and his ex-wife (in the second film).
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In the third film, Lenore is murdered, prompting a final rampage of revenge.
• Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: The Albanian gangsters in the first two films are doubly foreign — the ring from the first one operate in Paris and prey on Western people. And NONE of THEM are portrayed in ANY WAY sympathetically. They also inflict terrorist acts against anyone interfering in their business.
• Signature Move: A punch or chop to the throat is how Bryan likes to operate.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Bryan's martial arts style is very abrupt and efficient, fully obeys the laws of gravity and physics, and involves no somersaults or fancy kicks — he even refuses to use Guns Akimbo when he has two pistols. His style basically consists of ramming hard things into people's heads, and ramming people's heads into hard things, and dammit, it works really well.
  • Even regular kicking is avoided, which is a surprising bit of Shown Their Work for Hollywood. Many martial arts experts agree that kicking is mostly ineffective in a Real Life fight (especially in the close quarters most of the fight scenes take place).
• Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality: The films fall firmly on Level 3 of the scale, unusually for an action film series spanning between the late 2000s and mid-2010s. The vast majority of male characters are the only ones involved in the fighting and drive most of the plot, with the very few relevant females^note Mainly in the first movie, as Kim and Lenore are actually the two remaining females from Taken 2 onwards. taking the role of Damsel in Distress, Disposable Woman, or both. By Taken 2, Kim is the only female who outgrows this position, and even then she just provides non-offensive support to Bryan, while merely trying to dodge the bad guys rather than at least fighting them back briefly with the means she has in hand (to say nothing of the fact that she returns to damsel status in Taken 3). Of particular mention is the fact that plenty of Albanian women are seen mourning for their relatives at the opening funeral scene in Taken 2, yet none of them appear in the Albanian families' mission to get revenge on Bryan afterwards.
• Straw Misogynist / He-Man Woman Hater: ANYONE involved in terrorist sex trafficking is this by default. Murad is DEFINITELY one.
• Stupid Evil: Oh, let's see, where to start...
  • In the first film:
    • The human trafficking organization runs on the premise that the best women are young girls with rich families that can send them on vacation and who have the diplomatic clout to demand investigations. Better yet, they operate at a post-9/11 airport so that they can be recorded by security cameras talking to the girls at their last known location. Even if Bryan hadn't made his roaring rampage of rescue, the families would be demanding answers, the news media would be having a field day, and the French government would have shut the whole thing down within a week (maybe). Human trafficking only works when nobody cares enough about the victims to look for them.
    • The kidnappers didn't make sure that the SD card got broken along with the cell phone. A first piece of evidence for Bryan.
    • Special mention goes to Marko, the guy on the receiving end of the Electric Torture. When someone has jammed three-inch nails into your legs, what you don't want to do is spit in their face, twice.
    • It wouldn't have saved him anyway, but Patrice saying it wasn't personal to the father of one of the girls he sold off (whom he also held hostage) results in exactly what you think it would.
      Bryan: It was all personal to me! (BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!)
  • In the sequel:
    • The Albanians leave Bryan and Lenore restrained inside a locked room with an open window and no guard watching them inside at all (they only leave a guard outside who falls asleep once), not to mention that they didn't check if Bryan was carrying any hidden equipment that would help him break out. While Lenore doesn't get out until later (since she has no skill and stronger restraints), Bryan manages to escape without any sighting from the Albanians, on top of figuring out his location with help from Kim.
    • A man just escaped from being tied up, he theoretically had no idea where he was being held, and had no less than seven guards within spitting distance. He proceeded to kill all of the guards and tear apart a good portion of the police force and cityside while getting to an American embassy. Is it really such a good idea to continue holding his ex-wife?
    • Bryan spares Murad's life so that he won't have to continue fighting off his vengeful family. How does he respond? By trying to shoot Bryan as he leaves his gun and has his back turned. How does Bryan respond? He opens his palm to reveal that he popped the last bullet in the gun, then grabs Murad by the face and impales his head into a wall hook, killing him.
• Totalitarian Gangsterism: The Albanians and the entire sex trafficking industry operate with this, operating parts of Paris as a Police State, intimidating and inflicting misery to their victims and other civilians, and commit acts of terrorism against those who try to interfere with their operations.
• The Unfettered: Nothing is going to stop Bryan from finding his daughter, and there is no line he will not cross to find her. He even claimed to be willing to kill two old friends if they didn't help him achieve his goal. All of Bryan's actions in the movies indicate that he was not bluffing.
• Tranquil Fury: Bryan Mills doesn't do "screaming berserker". Even when he's threatening people, he talks loud, but rarely outright shouts. He lets the violence he inflicts speak for him.
• Underestimating Badassery: Even after proving that he's essentially a One-Man Army, nobody takes Bryan's threats seriously.
  • In the first movie, Bryan tells a number of people that he just wants his daughter back to no avail.
    • First to Marko, to whom he issues a simple and straightforward demand that doesn't work.
    • Then he tells Jean-Claude that he won't leave Paris without his daughter.
    • Finally, he offers Patrice a get-out clause if he just gives him Kim.
  • In Taken 2, the Albanians certainly took Bryan too lightly by applying lenient security measures after kidnapping him.
  • In Taken 3, those cops should've listened when they were told that Bryan doesn't screw up.
• Unstoppable Rage: Paris, a Middle East city and freaking Los Angeles get turned upside down in Bryan's rampages and he absolutely refuses to stop until he gets what he wants.
• Villain Opening Scene: The second and third movies open with Murad Hoxha visiting the funeral of his son and his associates and vowing revenge, and with Oleg Malankov killing a man after finding an empty safe, respectively.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Most of the major villains suffer from this. Bryan doesn't.
• Workplace-Acquired Abilities: "But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you."
• Worf Had the Flu: Bryan starts to run on fumes by the end (in addition to his hurry to finally get to Kim), which results in some tougher fights. Despite getting hurt a bit more, he doesn't stop. The same goes for the sequel.
• Would Hit a Girl: Bryan is not afraid to shoot someone's innocent wife in order to get the information he needs. He does have the courtesy to give her a flesh wound instead of outright killing her, though.