[If you haven’t seen “Taken”, please stop reading now because this contains spoilers. I’m sure you have though as the movie is 4 years old now]
I watched “Taken” with Liam Neeson for the second time this evening. It’s an awesome, awesome film. It struck me that the movie is actually about something more than Liam Neeson giving baddies a well deserved ass kicking.
Agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) has lost his family because he spent all his time working for the CIA. His wife has remarried a very wealthy man. Mills shows up at his daughter’s birthday party with a Karaoke machine as a gift for her 17th birthday. His daughter’s reaction is “cool.”. Her new father in law gives her a horse and she keeps repeating “I love you, I love you, I love you”.
Then the scenes in Paris are about the European trade in sex slaves and sex slavery. His daughter is bought and sold by various traders until she ends up in the hands of a wealthy Sheik.
Neeson rescues her and on her return to the USA they are standing outside of an airport and his daughter tells him “I love you” once and then disappears behind the glass of a limo belonging to her rich father-in-law and Neeson catches a cab home. Once again his daughter has been bought.
There’s a final scene at the end to soften the message a bit where Neeson arranges singing lessons with a famous pop star and they all live happily ever after. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Luc Besson’s intent was to bring to light a deep issue in human relationships: That money buys love in many ways, some subtle and some less so.