Posted on Tuesday, January 05, 2010 at 09:56 AM
Liam Neeson's 'Taken' a $145m domestic hit for Fox

Irish actor
Liam Neeson's "Taken" was a surprise hit of the year for Fox, bringing in $145 million domestically.
Neeson played retired C.I.A. operative
Bryan Mills in the movie and spent most of it in pursuit of the European thugs who have kidnapped his daughter Kim in
Paris for a sex slave ring.
Kim and her friend had told Neeson they were going to stay in a friend's apartment in Paris whereas they really intended following
U2 round
Europe.
Neeson played a
Bruce Willis type part in the film, a break from his usual sensitive and restrained roles.
Of course the fact that Neeson trained as a boxer in his native
Northern Ireland helped him portray the no-holds-barred
Dirty Harry type.
"Maybe it's a working class work ethic thing," Neeson told the
LA Times last year.
"I like the feeling of physical activity. I feel I've done an honest day's work for an honest dollar."
Neeson said he had read the script several years ago and told the French writer/director
Luc Besson, "I'd love to do this film. On one condition: I want to do all the fighting."
"That's the only way I'd want you to do it," Besson responded.