Thriller analysis: Taken (2008)

TAKEN

Genre

Crime, Action and Thriller.

Key Cast

Liam Neeson: Bryan Mills

Maggie Grace: Kim

Leland Orser: Sam

Storyline

Kim is seventeen and is the pride and joy of the her father Bryan Mills. Bryan was a CIA agent but retired to be near Kim in California. Kim lives with her mother and stepfather. Kim manages to convince Bryan to let her go abroad to paris with her friend amanda, and when they arrive in paris share a cab with a man named peter. Amanda lets it slip that they are alone in paris and peter organises for a grand of albanian human traffickers to kidnap the girls. Kim just has enough time to call her father and give him information. Bryan briefly speaks to one of the kidnappers and promises to kill them if they don't let his daughter free. The kidnapper wishes him 'good luck' and so bryan travels to paris to find his daughter and track down the kidnappers.

The opening starts with the expected production and distribution labels. It started with the elaborate 20th century fox sequence and then fades into a plain background and then white writing appears saying 'twentieth century fox presents'  it fades out into an old looking home video of a young girl on her birthday and then more credits are given. The home video lasts for around 30 seconds. We see the young girl opening the present and then blowing out candles. The diegetic sound is distorted, the singing of the happy birthday from her dad and the voice of her mother. Upon that is low tempo'd non diegetic piano music which works in setting the dark atmosphere against what seems a lovely memory.

As she blows out the candle the shot jumps to a one second snap shot of Bryan (Liam Neeson) lying on the sofa, it then goes dark but so that we can see him and we see him wake up, indicating he was dreaming that video. He then sits up on the sofa and picks up a framed photo and looks at it for a few seconds. He puts it back and gets up. as he gets up the camera doe s a close up of the photo and we see his daughter, now older on a horse smiling. Then the film title 'Taken' appears next to the photo. The order of the opening is strange with the title coming last, however sequence of the opening indicates his daughters importance to him which becomes clear later on and the fact taken appears next to her indicates she will be a key character in the storyline. 

We are introduced to the daughter before the protagonist, which again builds the feeling that she is the most important thing to him which is then displayed throughout the film. The vulnerability of her as the young child is portrayed in the whole film as she is the victim. It also displays her fathers chosen memories of her as a young and vulnerable child and presents the fathers stereotypical view of her as his 'baby girl' and his protectiveness over her.

I'm not sure if this is the actual trailer there were many trailers.