Anti-trafficking is a cause that’s very close to my heart. I gave half the rights to Innocent Hearts to a local charity that helps with the aftercare of trafficking victims as well as providing support for any child who’s gone through trauma. So you can imagine my excitment at finding out there was a hollywood film, with one of my favourite actors in, all about trafficking.

The premise is that Liam Neeson’s daughter is going to europe on holiday and while she’s there she gets taken by some traffickers. Just as she’s taken she manages to phone her father. He then goes after the people who’ve abducted her, killing msot of them along the way.

Now don’t get me wrong, in terms of action films this is a pretty good movie and it’s also really really awesome that there’s a major hollywood film that has trafficking in it, which for the most part was accurately portrayed.

My biggest problem with this film was him leaving lots of girls behind and not helping them all. It was gut wrenching to watch as he killed trafficker after trafficker but left all the girls locked in their rooms/chained to beds, except for one who has his daughter’s jacket. The annoying thing is I totally understand why he did this. He had to get to his daughter incredibly quickly, before they could do anything to her, which meant moving on and not taking the time to rescue anyone else. Let’s face it, what parent wouldn’t do exactly the same. But right at the end when he rescues his daughter there are two other girls on that ship. I’d have liked it if he had rescued those two as well, or it had at least shown us them being helped off the boat or something like that. It wouldn’t have needed much.

Back to the movie as a movie though, I have to say I really liked it, the more I watch Liam Neeson, the more I like him and it was only watching this film that I realised why his voice was so amazingly familiar in a very comforting way. He’s Aslan! Well his voice was the voice of Aslan in the Narnia films. Either way that made me very satisfied as I half imagined a ferocious lion in his place as he went hunting for his daughter and it may have added to the idea of the film in a very interestingly spectacular way. I will definitely be adding Liam Neeson to my list of favourite actors thanks to this film.

I felt the action was a little Bourne like at times though I think Neeson had a bit more of a mean streak in him. Normally the levels of violence in a film like this would make me feel a bit more queasy and I’d have probably looked away more but he was beating up traffickers (and sorta torturing them) and I have to admit I felt a small amount of satisfaction at that. Maybe I’m not as compassionate and merciful as I thought I was.

Either way I liked the film and I have seen the sequel as well now. I’ll review that soon.