It stars Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, David Warshofsky, Katie Cassidy, Holly Valance and Famke Janssen.
In the film, Bryan Mills, an ex-CIA officer, sets out to track down his teenage daughter Kim and her best friend Amanda after they are kidnapped by Albanian human traffickers while on vacation in France.
Bryan Mills, a retired Green Beret and CIA officer, attempts to build a closer relationship with his 17-year-old daughter Kim, who lives with her mother Lenore and her wealthy step-father Stuart.
Upon arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Kim and Amanda meet a handsome young stranger named Peter, who offers to share a taxi.
Bryan hears someone breathing on the phone and tells the listener that he will not pursue the kidnappers if they release his daughter but warns them that refusing to accept his offer will result in their deaths.
Sam, an old friend and former colleague of Bryan, deduces that the kidnappers are part of an Albanian sex trafficking ring and identifies the listener as mob boss Marko Hoxha.
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 trafficking terrorists, Bryan takes the woman to a hotel and improvises her detoxification.
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 terrorist leader Patrice Saint-Clair.
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.
[11] Jeff Bridges was first cast as Bryan Mills, but after he dropped out of the project, Liam Neeson accepted the part, desiring to play a more physically demanding role than he was used to.
Liam Neeson brings the character a hard-edged, mercilessly focused anger, and director Pierre Morel hurtles through action sequences at a breathless velocity.
Bryan Mills is characterized as "relentless attack machine who is impervious to fists, bullets and fast-moving cars, he uses a variety of martial arts skills to knock out more opponents than Mike Tyson and casually kill those he doesn't KO".
William G. Hillar, who pretended to be a retired Green Beret colonel, claimed to have spent more than 12 years lecturing US government agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation on security issues.
Taken 2 was subsequently released in France on 3 October 2012, with Neeson, Janssen, Grace, Gries, Rabourdin and Orser reprising their roles from the first film.
[38] In September 2015, NBC ordered a TV series depicting a younger Bryan Mills with Clive Standen portraying Mills, Gaius Charles, Monique Gabriela Curnen, James Landry Hébert, Michael Irby, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Jennifer Marsala and Simu Liu are cast as John, Vlasik, Casey, Scott, Dave, Riley and Faaron, members of OPCON.