Click to enlarge

Liam Neeson stars as Bryan Mills, a recently retired CIA operative who leaves the agency so he can spend more time with his daughter, who lives with her mother and super-rich step father.

Mills is paranoid about the welfare of his daughter to an almost psychotic degree. This isn’t helped when she and a friend go on a trip to Paris and are kidnapped by a gang of Albanian white slave traders, who take young nubile backpackers and sell them into prostitution.

Where this movie falls over is the predictability of it all, and on too many occasions it is hard to suspend disbelief. Every scene can be pre-empted by anybody with a basic knowledge of film. More is expected from writers Luc Besson and Robert Kamen, with lead Neeson only being able to do so much with what he has.

If you don’t like to think much, and love to see the good guys kick butt, then this movie is for you. If you are into something more cerebral, then avoid like the plague.