Review: Taken

Just got back from watching Taken. Apart from the terrible seat that I had, and the resulting bad angle that I had to look at the screen from (it's my own fault--we got to the theater late), it was a pretty well done movie. I'm not going to review any of the cinematography or script writing. Those of you have been around here for a while know that this blog is about something more. There are people far more qualified than I am to tell you what they did and didn't like. What I am here to do is to spoil the plot for you. But first, some of my own backstory that I brought to the movie when I watched it tonight. 

I watched the trailers on TV, and thought that it was going to be a great action movie. Guy kicks butt and fights an organization of kidnappers to try and find his daughter. It sounded a lot like Man on Fire 2.0. I showed the trailer to a couple of guys that I live with, and they also were immediately intrigued and wanted to go see the movie. I grabbed one of them, and another guy off of my floor, and we headed to our local movie theater. 

The movie was everything that the trailers said that it would be: lots of fighting, vengeance, and all around action that kept it going pretty smoothly. There was just this one thing that the trailers didn't mention: that the girl was kidnapped by sex traffickers. The rest of the entire movie gives a glimpse into the world of trafficking, and it worked me over pretty good. The directors and producers did a great job keeping the movie pretty clean, considering the subject matter that they were dealing with. 

Like some of you, I watched Christ in Youth's "Baht" film this summer. It also covers sex trafficking, but in Cambodia. Baht broke my heart for the women, the girls that are forced into prostitution over in Asia. One of my friends that came with me spent part of his summer in Cambodia, working with an organization called Rapha House that rescues girls out of trafficking and gives them skills so that they can re-enter society without reverting back to prostitution. 

When we walked out of the theater, I asked him "How much harder was that movie to watch once it became about sex trafficking?" His response was simply "Oh, yeah." He told us that a few of the scenes in the movie were not too far off what he saw last summer. 

Like I said earlier, Baht was heartbreaking, but Taken hit closer to home for me. I've got a strong paternal instinct, which I think come from having a sister that is so much younger than I am. I found myself sickened by the thought of someone that I loved being forced into sex trafficking. So here's the deal. It's time to get the word out about the travesty that is sex trafficking. Talk to people about it. Support organizations that are fighting it. Show people Taken (heads up--not a great date movie) and Baht. It's time to do something.