Liam Neeson’s movie, “Taken” is a story about his daughter being abducted in France for the prostitution underworld and how he attempts to get her back. Here is the summary from IMDb:

 The seventeen year-old Kim is the pride and joy of her father, the retired agent Bryan Mills that left the secret service to stay near Kim in California. Kim lives with her mother Lenore and her wealthy stepfather Stuart; she convinces the reluctant Bryan to sign an authorization to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda. When they arrive, they share a cab with the stranger Peter and Amanda tells to him that they are alone in Paris. When Bryan succeeds in contacting his daughter, she tells that criminals have just break in the spot and they are kidnapped by an Albanese gang of human trafficking. Bryan promises in the phone to kill the kidnapper of his daughter and immediately travels to Paris to find Kim and chase the criminals. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

While this movie is not par for my usual commentary (there are fight scenes) but being a step-father of an 18 year-old-girl, I see the same patterns of reckless behaivor as the girl in this movie. Girls today (as well as boys) think they are invincible and nothing bad will ever happen to them! Well in most cases they are right but as a parent I do worry about the times they are wrong. I will examine the plot of this movie and examine common dangerous behaviours as well as ways to mitigate risks. And yes I will review some of the fighting. Here is a trailer of the move. 

I just saw this movie and was right there with Liam in taking action to get his daughter back! This movie was a kind of James Bond version of going after the bad guys and to be honest, like most movies – very unrealistic. Ok suspending disbelief for a moment let me review what I saw.

First off the girl came off as a normal 17 – 25 year-old-woman. She only saw the fun part of the trip and while she was more cautious than her girl friend – they gave personal information to a total stranger. A girl/woman should trust reasonably instead of just going for it – meaning if they should have insisted on a cab at the airport and gave a cell phone number and agreed to meet at a mutual public location if they really wanted to meet up with some boys.

So getting on my high-horse, and as it so often happens, a wild friend can get other friends in trouble. I am not saying I know what to do about it other than the money bags (parental units) should insist on some common sense approaches to traveling like going with a tour or the other family’s parents. I guess I am over the hill talking like this but a parent will always worry about their children and teaching them to take reasonable precautions should be an achievable goal.

Now a little bit about the sex-trade going on the world over, this is very sad and often overlooked by polite society. It runs the gambit from work offers for women in poor parts of the world and then they (the women) find the “job” is actually at a brothel, to the obscene practice of troupes that win battles – taking the women for their own personal pleasure! There are runaways, immigrants, and yes probably still the kidnapping for girls all for black market human trafficking operations. Here is a video overview of the problem in the USA that appeared on the O’Reilly Factor.

After watching the O’Reilly Factor segment I really think that many girls can be at risk if their family support system is not functioning. If you want to learn more about the problem, the link referenced on the factor is here.

I do not want to ever be in the position that Liam Neeson was in this movie because as you may well know – it is far easier to prevent than to fix bad situations! Sure Liam was able to transition some spy and hand-to-hand combat skills to find his daughter in this move but in real life – that would not have happened. There are lots of real cases of women trafficked and most of these women will not find a “hero” to come and rescue them.

So what do I think? I think this was a great movie as a person that likes to take proactive steps to prevent bad things from happening. I also think the movie points out how safe preventive measures can help women from becoming targets – everything from creating a stable home environment for your daughter to teaching her how to interact socially reasonably and yes of course – learn Self-Defense!