It has "taken" me a long time to watch this movie. I intended to watch it in the movie theater, but life is busy and I never had the time to go and see it. So I "redboxed" it yesterday and watched it with Debby while we were at her sister's house.
I loved the movie, not only was it on a subject close to my heart, but it was a very well-done film.
It reminded me of when I first saw the documentary CIY made on human trafficking called "Baht". After I saw it, I first wanted to throw up. Then I wanted to kill people who would do this to women and children. At the time, I wasn't thinking about Liam Neeson (who did a great job in this movie, but obviously it hadn't come out yet), I was thinking about what it would take to make an "Iron Man" outfit, and then go to the brothels of Cambodia and rescue every girl I saw and destroy the bad guys.
Those thoughts came back to me after watching Taken.
The problem is using violence, although satisfying I'm sure, can't solve the problem of human trafficking. If you get rid of a gang of Albanians who are profiting from trafficking, it only leaves a vacuum for another group to come in and fill. If you rescue a thousand girls from Cambodian brothels, the system will only replace them with a thousand more. That doesn't mean we shouldn't care or that rescue operations shouldn't take place, but there are deeper issues that need to be taken care of if we will ever see trafficking eliminated in our lifetime.
One of those is the "demand" side of trafficking. The reason why it's such a profitable business is because the demand for prostitutes, sexual torture and pedophilia is huge. That's a huge issue that needs to be addressed.
There are of course other issues involved as well: police corruption, etc.
But I did enjoy the movie. And I'm glad it has done so well and made a ton of money. Hopefully this will help raise awareness of the issue.
