The film Taken, is a hybrid genre which has elements of action and thriller. This film was released in 2009. 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.
In terms of narrative, this film has many different theories that you can relate to. And this has influenced the producer of the film, Luc Besson to produce the film in a certain way following specific guidelines. For example, the storyline follows the narrative theory created by Todorov which is the point that in most great films there starts out with an equilibrium, (Kim's birthday, everyone's happy etc..) then a factor which disrupts the equilibrium (Kim travels to Paris and gets kidnapped) and finally a resolution or a new equilibrium (Bryan fights a lot of people to find his daughter and eventually he finds her and takes her back home). Taken follows this theory as at the start, there is a normal state of world where everyone is happy and contempt however the protagonist feels tensed over the fact that his daughter wants to go to Paris to follow a band tour. Once Kim arrives in Paris, Kim and Amanda are kidnapped by an Albanian gang, who get teenagers addicted to drugs in order to sell them on to other criminals (Saint Clair). This is the disequilibrium or the dilemma of the story. Throughout the film, there is a chain of events which take place between the protagonist and the villains which involves a substantial amount of conflict. Further on in the film, the protagonist conquers over the villains in the film as Todorov's theory confirms that there is a new equilibrium in the storyline and the characters seem to have learnt from the situations that have taken place. There is a now a new equilibrium which is almost like a resolution however is not the same as the first equilibrium. This is because the characters now live their lives differently to before and that they are much aware therefore being more careful in the future.
Every film also includes a protagonist; the main character of the film; enigma codes which control how much the audience know at a point in the film. This makes the audience more interested as they want to find out about more about the story. Taken includes a lot of this for example, an example of an action code is when the protagonist has doubts that his daughter will be safe in France alone with her friend. This is an action code as we as the audience can tell that this may be an important part which builds the narrative. The film as a whole keeps the audience guessing a lot hence why there are many enigma codes. Despite this, it doesn't create a lot of mystery in the film which allows the audience to engage into the films narrative. This narrative is made by Rolland Barthes.
The film also follows a linear pattern which means that it is in a chronological order of beginning, middle and end. It's done in this way due to the fact that its a big budget Hollywood action movie.
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