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Bryan Mills has given up his job as security expert for the sake of being closer to his daughter Kim – despite her living with the divorced mother. When Kim gets on a trip to Europe with a friend, the two girls get abducted by an Albanian human trafficking ring, and Bryan follows on their tracks. Through his professional skills, he soon sets the Parisian underground aflame, driven by his wrath, und even the French police, conspiring with and profiting from the mafia, cannot stop his quest.

Of course this is all nonsense (and the thing with the boat driver, Mr Kermode, is the least of problems): no way anybody can hide away from police, being shot at, being captured, escaping out of captivity, finding just the right Albanian bargain brothel (which should there be only one? The look cheap in the making.). Why was the one girl he finds actually taken to the “house with the party”, but Kim and her friend were abducted from the apartment, even though they already agreed to come over? Why why why oh what the hell! Liam Neeson looks great as some form of Jack Baur on a “this is purely personal” mission. He has a certain credibility in his fighting off housefuls of Albanian bad guys, going in unarmed, coming out last man standing. If you like this completely blunt professionalism that usually either hit men or CIA agents show in movies (or CIA movies working as hit men), then this film is quite pleasant. Moving ahead like a Tsunami, Bryan rolls over the guys who have taken his girl to sell her in some weird human flesh auction, and he is moving in and out of the most guarded locations as if he had the cat-like qualities of a James Bond. He does not have the humour, though, because information is being extracted by way of very hogh voltage through very pointed metal sticks, and if shooting the wife needs to be done to get the attention of the husband, not a second is wasted. The nice thing about this form of revenge movie is that the evilness of the original deed provides advance absolution for anything that is necessary to be done in reaction to it. In this sense, the film (as so many of the Luc Besson productions, now that I think of it) is deeply immoral, but good fun to watch.

One Comment

  1. Hey ThoHa! I really like your blog, so I have awarded it the Superior Scribbler Award on my blog:)

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