Tradecraft: Who Gets Taken in Taken 2

Tradecraft: Who Gets Taken in Taken 2

Ever since we first heard there would be a sequel to the 2008 Liam Neeson neo-Eurospy hit Taken (review here), the big question has been who will get taken this time? It would be pretty weak if former CIA agent Bryan Mills' daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), got randomly snatched yet again the next time she traveled to a foreign country on her own! (And pretty unlikely that her dad would even allow her to take such a trip, for that matter, having found his crazy over-protectiveness fully justified.) Happily, that won't be happening. The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog has the first plot synopsis I've seen for the sequel in an article about the casting of ubiquitous Russian bad guy Rade Sherbedgia (The Saint, Mission: Impossible II, 24) as the villain of the piece. (Of course he is!) According to the trade blog, "Sherbedgia will play Murad, the father of a kidnapper slain by Bryan Mills (Neeson) in the first film. Murad is described as a vengeful man who gives orders and doesn't take them. When Murad takes Mills and his wife hostage, their daughter is enlisted to help save them." Hm. Well, I was hoping that Famke Janssen (GoldenEye) would get to play a larger role in the second film, and assuming she's the wife in question (the couple were divorced in the first movie), I guess she will. The part that surprises me is the notion of Kim rescuing Bryan. I'm assuming that Bryan will find plenty of ways to kick ass on his own, even in captivity. (Die Hard-style?) But I can't quite wrap my head around Maggie Grace in an expanded action role. She was by far the weakest link in the first film. But she was good on Lost, so we know she's capable of better. The biggest problem with her part in Taken was that she was required to play seventeen at twenty-five, and over-compensated by playing Kim as if she were twelve. Hopefully in this one, given that some time has passed, Kim will be allowed to have grown up a bit. Perhaps producer Luc Besson was so impressed with Grace's performance in his upcoming Guy Pearce neo-Eurospy actioner Lockout that he decided to expand her part? We'll find out when Lockout opens next April. Taken 2, as reported earlier this week, will open Columbus Day weekend 2012, written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen and directed by Colombiana's Olivier Megaton. The action takes place in Istanbul.