Nothing makes a movie more interesting than using an emotion everyone shares and taking it to the extreme. In Pierre Morel’s Taken, a father’s love for his daughter is proved to be unstoppable. I think everyone can relate to that somehow.

Whether you’re a father, daughter, son, mom, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa – you name it – movies like this always touch close to home. It’s that one simple thing that drew me to this movie. Fortunately, I was not disappointed. It looks like there’s a reason it took the top box office spot for last weekend at $24.6 million.

In the film, retired CIA “Preventor” Bryan Mills is living in the U.S. to be closer to his teenage daughter, who now lives with her mother and wealthy step-dad. When she and her friend are kidnapped while on vacation in Europe, Mills (Liam Neeson) goes there to find her. He uses his skills acquired during his many years of CIA work to uncover an underground slave-trade society, which his daughter Kim has now been forced into. Don’t worry, I didn’t give anything away for you.

Taken is a must-see. With a leading actor like Liam Neeson, you know it’s going to be nonstop thrills and suspense. The plot was easy to follow, yet not too corny. I will say, though, that it was a little too unrealistic. Of course you should expect that in an action film, but this was one of the movies where everything worked out a little too perfectly for the main character. Nonetheless, I was still impressed.

So if you have about $8 and two hours to fill, spend it watching this. Don’t forget the candy.