Taken

Retired, decorated, highly-trained veteran CIA operative Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) picks out a karaoke machine for the birthday of his seventeen-year-old daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). When Bryan gets to Kim's house, he gives her the present, but is upstaged by Kim's stepfather Stuart (Xander Berkeley), who gives her a horse. After leaving the party, three of his friends arrive at his house for the steak party that was forgotten by Mills. As they leave, Bryan's friend and former CIA colleague Sam (Leland Orser) convinces Bryan to take up a job with him: working as bodyguards for the famous singer Sheerah (Holly Valance). When the concert ends Bryan escorts Sheerah out of the venue and manages to fend off an attacker earning favor with the singer and, through her, music coaches and record label owner's numbers. The next day, he has lunch with his daughter, only to find that Lenore (Famke Janssen) has accompanied her so they can persuade Bryan to sign a parental consent form allowing Kim to go to Paris with her 19-year-old friend, Amanda (Katie Cassidy). Bryan agrees on the condition that Kim calls him immediately once she lands and every night thereafter. When they arrive, Kim and Amanda meet Peter (Nicolas Giraud) who persuades the two to share a taxi. When they arrive where the girls are staying, he tells the girls that his friend is having a party and offers to pick them up, obtaining their apartment number. As he leaves, he opens his cell phone and gives information about the girls to an unknown person. While on the phone with Bryan, Kim witnesses Amanda being abducted. Bryan informs her that she will be taken as well, and gives her instructions. As Kim is being taken, she shouts out as much about her kidnapper as she can before she is knocked out. One of the kidnappers takes the phone and listens to a threat from Bryan before smashing the phone. Bryan made a recording of the call, and Sam analyzes it. Sam tells Bryan that the kidnappers are the Albanian Mafia, and they are part of a gang dealing largely in sex slaves. Bryan contacts Stuart to secure a private plane, and travels immediately to Paris. In Paris, Bryan tracks down Peter, who is hit by a bus after trying to escape, and then meets up with his old friend, Jean-Claude (Olivier Rabourdin). Bryan needs to know where the Albanians could be. Jean-Claude claims that there are many Albanians in Paris. Bryan then learns of an Albanian-run brothel at a nearby construction site. At the brothel Bryan is unable to find Kim or Amanda but instead rescues another girl who was in possession of Kim's jacket. After rescuing the girl, Bryan takes her to a hotel and meets up with another friend, Gilles, who is working as a hotel manager. Next day, the girl tells him that she had been given the jacket at a particular house where Kim and the gang may be. He follows the girl’s advice and finds the house. Bryan nearly kills the entire gang after recognizing the voice from the phone call. Bryan searches the rooms of the house and finds many drugged, imprisoned sex slaves, including Kim's friend Amanda, who died from an apparent overdose. Bryan then tortures the surviving gang leader for information. The gang leader reveals that Kim was sold to a man named Patrice Saint-Clair (Gérard Watkins) before Bryan leaves him in an active electric chair. Bryan then appears at Jean-Claude's apartment and confronts him about his apparent dealings with the Albanian smugglers, threatening him by shooting his wife but not killing her. Bryan, posing as Jean-Claude, then goes to a party hosted by Saint-Clair. Bryan tracks down Kim just as she is being sold in a darkened room but is subdued before he can stage a rescue. After regaining consciousness and liberating himself from his captors, Bryan finds Saint-Clair and kills him, but not before finding out where Kim was taken. Bryan tracks down the yacht belonging to the Arab sheikh that bought Kim. Bryan boards the yacht and kills all the guards on board. He then kills the sheikh and frees his daughter. Bryan comforts Kim and takes her back to the United States. At the L.A. airport, Kim is reunited with Lenore and Stuart. A couple of days later, Bryan surprises Kim with a visit to Sheerah's house to help improve her singing.