"Taken" is a movie best seen when there's nothing else playing or when someone else is paying.

In its 93 minutes you will never experience a "wow, how'd they do that?" sensation. Nevertheless, there's enough well-paced action to sustain viewer interest throughout the film. From when we first meet divorced father Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) watching home videos in a small, dark room to when he finally catches up with his 17-year-old daughter Kim in Paris, the pace is kinetic enough to (at least) stave off sleep.

After Albanians kidnap Kim and her friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy) in Paris, Mills travels through the city tracking them down in a desperate attempt to find the young women before the trail runs cold and they're lost forever. The man-on-fire plot and visceral action combined were enough to make it the most popular movie in the U.S. during its debut weekend.

Director Pierre Morel frames Mills' conversations with Kim and his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) closely around their faces, giving the scenes an intimate feel.

Those closeups, along with a wobbly camera, add to the movie's drama, especially in the scene in which the women have been taken away.

You've already seen bits and pieces of this scene; most of it was adapted for the trailer. But if you haven't, it goes something like this:

One of the kidnappers picks Kim's phone up and listens as Mills warns the criminals they don't know who they've just messed with.  He's got a "very particular set of skills" and unless the two women are released safely, he's going to use them.

Unfortunately, the line works better in the trailer.

One might question whether someone who just heard his daughter being kidnapped could give such an eloquent a speech as the one Mills' delivers.

He ends that speech with overwritten lines that have him warning Kim's kidnappers they have messed with the wrong person: "I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

Kim and Amanda might be young and stupid, but Mills is devoted and persistent.  Mills' friends tell us that despite having had a job (as a "preventer" in the CIA) that kept him away from home most of the time, Mills remained dedicated to his family--well, to his daughter anyway.

For Kim's 17th birthday, Mills stresses over whether or not his karaoke machine is the right gift. The gift is well-received but no match for the horse Kim's stepfather Stuart (Xander Berkeley) buys for her.  The happy-go-lucky teen does love her father, and while he is both devotion and overprotective, she doesn't get to see him often.

Mills loves her, but his continuous absence and the presence of a rich, loving stepfather has overshadowed any prowess he could ever express or match as a father...or something.

Soon after the birthday party at Stuart and Lenore's mansion, Kim and Lenore pressure Mills into signing a parental consent form allowing the minor 17-year-old to go to Paris for the summer.

At the airport, Mills distressingly discovers that Kim and Amanda won't be staying in Paris for long: they are following U2's concert tour across Europe. At least, that's the plan.

Before they can hear a single note of music, they share a cab with an attractive stranger named Peter (Nicolas Giraud) at the airport in Paris. When they exit the cab, Peter invites them to a party. As soon as Peter walks away, he makes a call and sets the kidnapping in motion..but not before the two women playfully give him their address.

Not long after the two settle into their fancy residence in Paris, 19-year-old Amanda asks Kim when she is going to lose her virginity. Perhaps because the question directly foreshadows Kim's fate of being kidnapped by men who turn women into prostitutes, Amanda's comments seem forced.

If there is anything positive we can glean from the kidnapping of Kim and Amanda, it's that their attempted rescue is a challenge that only the (surprise!) specially-trained Mills - and not Stuart or Lenore -- has a chance of ever successfully completing.

Almost as soon as Mills puts down the receiver, he's boarding a plane to Paris to rescue his daughter. When he arrives to France, the police still haven't been called to the scene, but given the police officers' feeble and ineffective performances throughout the movie, this isn't surprising.

Mills tracks down the Albanian group responsible for Kim and Amanda's disappearance and, needless to say, Mills dispenses with (read: kills) members of the group as if they were moving in slow-motion.

Neeson is at his best when he is engaging in humorous dialogue, and with the high number of people who die at the other end of his gun, there's room for more humor to balance out the violence.

Three main chase scenes take place in this film, one of which takes place over the course of about an eighth of a mile.

When Mills finds Peter at the airport luring more young women into his trap, the determined father quickly begins to chases him.

The conclusion of the chase is one of the more satisfying (as well as funny ) moments in the movie.  We don't think we're giving much away in a movie like "Taken" when we say death may be involved.

Still, police are nowhere to be found.

Unfortunately, Pierre Morel's camerawork destroys the other two chase scenes...

Both begin with potential, but you would hardly know it by watching the end product.  It's difficult to determine how close the villain's vehicle is to Mills' stolen vehicle when no shot seems to last more than half-a-second.

For a better chase scene, rent" Ronin."

The last fight scene doesn't go too differently.  A wobbly camera and quick cuts make for a hard-to-follow fight.

There would have been plenty of room for these effects to work had they been used in moderation, but they were not.

"Taken" might not deserve a place in your personal library when it's released to DVD and Blu-ray, but as a matinee special, it will earn some ticket money. It's worth seeing - just let a friend pay.