Plot

A retired CIA agent travels across Europe and relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, who has been kidnapped while on a trip to Paris.

Seventeen year-old Kim is the pride and joy of her father Bryan Mills. Bryan is a retired agent who left the Central Intelligence Agency to be near Kim in California. Kim lives with her mother Lenore and her wealthy stepfather Stuart. Kim manages to convince her reluctant father to allow her to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda. When the girls arrive in Paris they share a cab with a stranger named Peter, and Amanda lets it slip that they are alone in Paris. Using this information an Albanian gang of human traffickers kidnaps the girls. Kim barely has time to call her father and give him information. Her father gets to speak briefly to one of the kidnappers and he promises to kill the kidnappers if they do not let his daughter go free. The kidnapper wishes him "good luck," so Bryan Mills travels to Paris to search for his daughter and her friend.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

After reluctantly agreeing to let his 17-year-old daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), go to France with her best friend, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is horrified to hear that she is kidnapped by an Albanian gang whose specialty is prostitution rings. With only 96 hours to go before he'll never find her again, Bryan rushes to France to save her. As a former CIA agent, he has all the skills necessary to rescue her - if he can only find her.—The Mariah

Former CIA agent Bryan Mills reluctantly agrees to let his 17 year old daughter Kim go to Paris on a trip. His ex-wife Lenore and her new husband Stuart are all for it and Kim sets off with a friend. On arrival in Paris however, Kim and her friend are kidnapped by mobsters running a slavery-prostitution ring. Bryan's only lead is a short snippet of a conversation from when Kim phoned him in a panic. With that, he's able to identify the origin of the speaker and which criminal gang he's with. Once in Paris, he quickly shows everyone connected with the case that he will stop at nothing to get his daughter back.—garykmcd

Yearning to bridge the gap between him, his ex-wife, Lenore, and his lively seventeen-year-old daughter, Kim, the divorced and almost retired former CIA agent, Bryan Mills, struggles to spend more quality time with her. However, when Mills reluctantly gives his permission to let Kim and her friend, Amanda, travel to Paris, his fears will be justified, as the two innocent girls get kidnapped on arrival by a ruthless white-slavery ring. Now, up against the well-prepared kidnappers, the seasoned veteran has less than 96 hours to rescue his daughter, and the clock is ticking. Can Mills put the fragments of information to good use?—Nick Riganas

Bryan (Liam Neeson) is retired CIA. he loves his 17 year old girl Kimberly "Kim" Mills (Maggie Grace), who now lives with ex-wife Lenore "Lenny" Mills-St John (Famke Janssen) & her new husband Stuart St. John (Xander Berkeley). Kim wants to be a singer. For her birthday Bryan brings a karaoke machine, but Stuart tops that with a horse and wins the battle of the gifts.

Bryan is protecting a pop singer Sheerah (Holly Valance) as a private consultant with friends (Sam (Leland Orser) & others) & saves her from a knife-wielding attacker when she was coming out of her concert. It was a 4-hour job which paid $2500 to take Sheerah to and from her concert. Out of gratitude, Sheerah offers to have a vocal coach assess Kim as a singer. She also shares the number of the manager and says that if her vocal coach clears her, the manager will make sure that she gets her shot at a singing career.

Before Bryan can tell her about the offer, Kim wants to go to Paris with friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy) & asks Bryan for permission. Bryan is skeptical (as he does not believe that it is safe for 2 17-year-old girls to be traveling alone) but signs the consent form when Kim is upset with his refusal. Kim says the trip is an art tour of Paris. At the airport, Bryan learns that Kim lied to him and that the girls are planning to follow U2 during their European tour as he found a map and Kim's entire travel schedule in her bag. Lennore knew and did not say anything. Lennore retorts that Kim had to lie to Bryan as she could not be honest with him due to his rules and conditions.

At Paris airport, they meet young Parisian named Peter (Nicolas Giraud). He wants to share a Taxi as he says that the taxis in Paris are very expensive. Kim reluctantly agrees. They have Peter take their picture with Kim's phone. Peter drops them off & invites them to a party. Peter makes a quick phone call "Two girls about 18" and the address of the apartment. Kim asks Amanda about the cousins & Amanda says that they are vacationing in Spain. Kim feels uncomfortable as she told Bryan that Amanda's cousins would be in Paris with them. But Amanda retorts that Kim has already lied to Bryan about other things as well. Amanda plans to sleep with Peter and encourages Kim to lose her virginity in Paris as well.

As Bryan calls Kim, 2 men attack & subdue Amanda in their apartment. Bryan asks Kim to hide under the bed. She tells Bryan about Peter. Bryan already takes out his call recording gear and records the call with Kim. Bryan tells her that she will be "Taken" but asks her to keep phone on (and to leave it under the bed) & shout as much description of the kidnappers as possible. Following Bryan's instructions, she screams out, "Beard! Six Feet! Tattoo, right hand, moon and star!". The kidnapper takes the phone & Bryan tells him to let Kim go, else he will find & kill them. Kidnapper says good luck.

Bryan calls in Sam & he finds the language from a town in Albania (the voice conversation of kidnappers recorded via Kim's phone). Their leader Marko (Arben Bajraktaraj) runs a prostitution business. Based on previous abductions, Kim must be found within 96 hours, or she will be lost forever.

Bryan flies to Paris, where he enters the apartment and finds Peter's reflection in a picture on Kim's phone. He finds Peter at the airport, trying to lure a female traveler. Bryan attempts to beat the information out of Peter and demand the whereabouts of Kim and Amanda but is stopped by his partner. Bryan gives chase in a stolen taxi. While fleeing, Peter is suddenly killed by an oncoming truck.

Bryan meets French intelligence Jean-Claude (Olivier Rabourdin) an ex-DGSE agent turned National Police officer, who gives him a address where the Albanian gang operates out of. Jean-Claude warns him not to get involved but informs him of the local red-light district where Bryan plants a listening device on an Albanian pimp. Bryan searches a makeshift brothel in a construction yard and rescues a drugged young woman who has Kim's denim jacket.

After a gunfight and high-speed chase with the brothel's operators and killing several traffickers, Bryan takes the woman to a hotel and improvises her detoxification. The following day, the woman tells Bryan about a house where she and Kim were kept.

Posing as Jean-Claude, Bryan enters the trafficker safe-house under the pretense of renegotiating the police protection rate. When Bryan identifies Marko by tricking him into saying "good luck," the meeting erupts into a fight, which results in the deaths of several kidnappers. Searching the house, Bryan finds several heavily drugged girls, including Amanda, who died due to an overdose. Bryan then tortures Marko with electricity and leaves him to die from continuous electrocution, but not before the latter confesses that virgins like Kim are quickly sold on the black market and identifying the buyer as a crime syndicate leader Patrice Saint-Clair (Gérard Watkins).

At Jean-Claude's apartment, Bryan confronts him over his corruption and shoots his wife, wounding her arm, to coerce him into disclosing Saint-Clair's location before knocking him out. Bryan infiltrates a secret sex slave auction taking place beneath Saint-Clair's mansion, where Kim is the subject of the last sale.

Bryan forces one of the bidders Ali (Jalil Naciri) to purchase her but is subsequently caught and knocked out. Learning about Bryan's identity, Saint-Clair orders his henchmen to kill him, but Bryan breaks loose and eliminates them all. A mortally wounded Saint-Clair reveals details of a yacht owned by a sheikh named Raman (Nabil Massad) before Bryan kills him.

Bryan pursues the yacht and eliminates the bodyguards, including Ali before he finds Raman holding Kim at knife-point. When Raman attempts to negotiate, Bryan kills him, and Kim is rescued. Back in the US, Bryan surprises Kim by taking her to visit Sheerah.