Benchmark Blog 14: Taken
It has been quite a while since I last blogged. Chris and I had the opportunity to see Taken recently. I normally refuse to see movies about kids being abducted, so it really surprised me that I really wanted to see this movie. White boys normally do not appeal to me, but Liam Neeson gets the Eastern European nod, so that is foreign enough. Then there is the fact that he is just a B.A. operative in this movie. I can tell you without ruining the movie that it is about the sex trade of young girls. This was my mother's favorite reason for denying me the ability to go to the mall with my friends, etc. At the time, I thought that she was extremely paranoid, to the point of delusion, in the "humble" opinion of a middle schooler. Now as the mother of a middle schooler, I consider this film quite educational. rest assured that my daughters WILL see this movie before they are allowed to go places independently. This movie was so good! I would definitely recommend it. It was so good that I was going to go see it a second time with my friend that was in for the weekend. (We had second thoughts and decided not to see it, when we realized that it was Valentine's Day.) It also catapulted Liam Neeson to a whole new spot for me. Grrr!
Grade: A
WARNING: Spoilers ahead!
There are so many lessons for young girls to take from this movie. Let's delineate them, so that we can point them all out.
- The movie starts off and the girl is lobbying to go to Europe with her friend. We quickly find out that she has deceived her father (Liam Neeson) and is subsequently abducted.
Lesson 1: Don't lie to your parents. They have reasons for what they do.
- Liam's daughter finds out upon arrival that her friend's relatives are not actually in residence while they are there as she had informed her parents.
Lesson 2: Your friends may lie to you in order to get your parents to agree to a situation. You should immediately come clean with your parents when you discover this situation has occurred.
- She and her friend decide to share a taxi with a cute stranger to the home that they are staying at for the summer. They also give said stranger lots of private information, like that the host family is not actually there and they are alone. He subsequently quickly routes the abductors to the address.
Lesson 3: Don't ride with strangers, even in a taxi. Who knows their motivation.
- Liam's daughter has time to call her father before she is abducted, but her friend does not. He gives her some pointers and this gives him the basis for the search.
Lesson 4: Not everyone is going to be able to call for help in these situations. Not everyone is going to have someone who has the ability to come find them. This point is also emphasized throughout the movie with all the other girls that he runs across in the various rooms.
- Liam uses his contacts in law enforcement to get information on who is holding her. Then he finds out that his friend is dirty.
Lesson 5: The government knows that these things occur and either suppress them or are unable to do anything about them.
- The scenes that show girls strung out and tied to the beds illustrate how this can happen.
Lesson 6: Sex slavery is real. As paradoxical as it may seem. middle schoolers will believe a movie more than news articles. This is probably the case because it is presented in story format and gives them some way to comprehend it. This movie is quite pragmatic about presenting a realistic situation on how this so easily could happen.
I am sure that I have missed some of the lessons to be gleaned from this movie please feel free to add to the lessons that I can point out to my daughters when they view it.
The only reason this movie did not get an A+ was for the scene where he is driving an SUV through their camp. Bullets are flying in all directions, including through the car and he manages to escape unscathed. It seems a little too incredulous. Yet it does not seriously detract from the movie.
There was also one important lesson that I wanted to point out for parents. The girl's mother knows that her plans are to follow a band around Europe for the summer and aids in the deception of the father to obtain his permission.
Lesson: Being your child's "friend" is not always what is best for the child. It is much more important to be the parent. This is especially true as the child becomes a teenager.