TAKEN: Luc Besson may have lost his edge

TAKEN is no LEON. It's not even MAN ON FIRE.

But it is admirably tense and no-nonsense, as Liam Neeson has four days to save his kidnapped daughter before she vanishes into the sex trade. You've seen this movie before, and while there is nothing particularly new or interesting, it does an effective job in reminding you why the formula works: a pissed-off father is a terrifying thing.

Especially when that father is Liam Neeson, who does an excellent job of believably kicking ass and taking names, and he's backed by a billionaire and years of government training in these types of shady dealings.

The script adds some nice elements that keep this from being a paint-by-numbers affair - the first of which is the inclusion of Neeson's estrangement from his kidnapped daughter and her fondness of her stepfather (Xander Berkeley, in a refreshing change of role from the usual snotty traitor he seems to be typecast as). There's not a whole lot there, but it's enough to keep the relationships a bit fresher than say, oh, DEATH WISH 4. The only really two-dimensional character is Famke Janssen, who isn't given much to do in the role of "The Ex-Wife". Putting in particularly fine work is Olivier Rabourdin, in the role of Neeson's beleaguered French counterpart who has a few nice scenes to show some unexpected depth.

The movie's greatest failing is how unrelenting it is in some aspects, and how commercial it is in others. In one particularly strong scene, Neeson threatens the innocent lives of one man's family to get the information he needs, and the movie is strongest at moments like these, where characters veer into some very dark territory. There are some horrifying things in this movie, like how the prostitution ring uses drugs to control the kidnapped women, and there are some particularly effective scenes where Neeson is forced to confront women who are eerie future versions of his daughter.

But for all this bleak darkness, the film has a shockingly optimistic ending, which is all the more disappointing for how the film plays with those dark melodies. The endings of MAN ON FIRE and LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL stressed the consequences of going to dark places to rescue innocence, but TAKEN seems to be quite content to take the opposite approach, never really ruminating on the horrors it shows you, and for that, it ultimately fails.