In Seine Action for New Thriller

The latest high-voltage European-based thriller to come from the Luc Besson stable, Taken, is a trashy action yarn that will please its target audience.

Besson, the Nikita auteur, has scripted this Paris-set yarn which stars an unlikely Liam Neeson as a former special forces operative who has taken a dull security job in order to be close to his estranged wife (Famke Janssen) and daughter (Maggie Grace).

Against his better judgment, he approves a trip to France for the teenager, where she promptly gets kidnapped by a bunch of sex and drug traffickers.

But these crooks have messed with the wrong dad and Leeson uses his old contacts to try to track his daughter down.

Some of the dialogue is downright ridiculous and its hard to know how Leeson manages to keep his poker face at times.

But the action is often tense (especially the kidnap scene overheard by Leeson on his daughter’s mobile phone and a fine boat chase along the Seine) and the pace as breakneck as you might expect from the team behind the Transporter movies.

It’s not in the same league as the Bourne films, although it would like to be but uses Paris and its tourist highlights as a good backdrop.

As glossy, brutal, style- over-content thrillers go, this is passable entertainment.

Nigel Powlson

(c) 2008 Derby Evening Telegraph. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.