Advice...unsolicited

Very few people ask for my advice. They are really missing out. All of this is about to change.

If You are Kidnapped by an Eastern European Gang while on Vacation in Paris, Don’t Tempt Fate by Taking another Vacay in Eastern Europe 4 Years Later With Your Dad Who Killed a Lot of Dangerous Guys with Dangerous Friends Living in Eastern Europe

Admittedly, this advice is for one very specific (fictional) person: Kim Mills (as played by Maggie Grace in One of The Cinematic Achievements of Our Generation, Taken).

The Trailer for Taken 2 was just released this week, and I have to take a moment from my utter excitement to take a quick reality check here (on un-real people).

Kimmy, Kimmy, Kimmy. What are we going to do with you? First you go off and get yourself kidnapped in Paris by an Eastern European gang, and then you take a relaxing vacation…where? EASTERN EUROPE? AND you bring your MOM into it this time? Oh, honey. Where do I start?

Let’s start with the group of people more unfortunate than you: people who have not seen Taken.  Listen. Sometimes I’m sarcastic. This is not one of those times. Taken is awesome and your life is incomplete if you haven’t seen it.  Public service announcement: see it right now then come back and read this. If you’re at “work” or wherever and don’t have time to check out Taken (or don’t watch it on the regular like I have since 2008), let me review the plot.

Brian Mills (played by Liam Neeson) is an ex-CIA agent who is trying to reconnect with his 17-year-old daughter, Kim (played by Maggie Grace and styled by Gap Kids). They’re not like, super-estranged, but Brian and her mom Lenore (don’t call her Lenny) (played by Famke Janssen) got divorced because he was married to his dangerous job and Lenore preferred a husband who could buy Kim a horse for her birthday (not a lame 80’s karaoke machine like Brian did). Anyway, Kim heads to Paris with her slutty-ish pal Amanda (played by Katie Cassidy) to follow U2 on tour. Brian is un-thrilled about this, but no one listens to him because he used to be in the CIA and what does he know about dangerous areas internationally. Big mistake. Before even seeing one concert Kim and Amanda meet this cutie at the airport, who unfortunately is a spotter and sends this Eastern European sex trafficking gang straight to their fancy apartment in the 7th. Kim and Amanda are Taken. Brian is on the phone during the whole kidnapping and gives the best monologue of all time. He then heads to Europe, kills like 30 people super violently, shoots a government official’s wife in the arm after she makes him a nice dinner, and rescues Kim. Not Amanda, though. She wasn’t a virgin so she choked on her own vomit and died (Hear that, kids? Have sex and you’ll die covered in your own vomit). Then Kim and her mom and her horse-buying step-dad take car service home from the airport and let Brian-the-hero-with-a-shot-arm take a cab. Rude. It’s really a flawless film.

So with the above information, would you not agree that it’s a little, shall we say, over-adventurous for Kim and Lenny to surprise Brian in Istanbul a few years later? I mean, isn’t there a Club Med somewhere in the Florida Keys that sounds a little safer?

This is meant with no offense to Turkey. I’ve heard it’s lovely to visit. I’d like to make a trip there one day. That said, if my dad killed all these Eastern European gang members on my behalf, I probably wouldn’t. 

You know what else? I probably wouldn’t leave the house, let alone the country, if I had recently been kidnapped with the intention to be sold to a sheik for sex slavery. I’ve never been kidnapped by a sex-trafficking gang from a fictional former-Soviet country, but I can assume it’s wicked traumatizing.

So where are we going with this, Kim? Am I to expect a naive monologue about how you’re not going to live your life in fear because you’ve been given a second chance during the film? That’s going to make me mad for two reasons. 1.) Selfish. You get kidnapped again, guess who’s going to have to truck around every seedy neighborhood killing thugs to find you? That’s right: your dad. He’s nearing his golden years, give the guy a break. 2.) Only your dad is allowed to give awesome monologues.

What is it with fictional Kims getting themselves in trouble and leaning on their government agent dads to fix it? Yeah, Kim Bauer from 24: I haven’t forgotten about you. You gave your dad season upon season of grief with all of your shenanigans. He rescued you from terrorists/Eric Balfour’s scuzzy beard: did you really need to become a nanny for a psychopath of a family and find a dead body in your trunk so soon after? I respect your decision to get in sitcom-witness protection on Happy Endings. Kim Mills: follow suit.

But what I really want to say is: thank you for your stupidity. I cannot wait for Taken: 2. who’s with me for the midnight screening?!

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