TAKEN

It’s an ageing action hero’s worst nightmare: your beautiful daughter is abducted by baddies and you’re the only one who can get her back. Liam Neeson is a retired secret service operative whose marriage broke down because he spent too much time protecting the country. His seventeen-year-old is in Paris when she’s nabbed by a nasty bunch of East-Europeans. But it’s not just any kidnapping. They want to turn her into a virgin prostitute and sell her off. You can guess the rest: a rampage of escalating violence in which daddy tracks down and executes every last bad guy until he rescues her and redeems himself. It’s a brutal and highly exploitative ride, but I guess someone has to do it. Not for the squeamish. (Lachlan Jobbins)