Beat Analysis - TAKEN (2008)

I'm working on a couple of projects for clients that are similar to TAKEN, so I decided to do a beat analysis.

Director: Pierre Morel
Writers: Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen
Stars: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen

Log Line: A retired CIA agent travels to Europe and relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, who has been kidnapped while on a trip to Paris.

The real attraction here is that the first film was a success: It did $226M worldwide off $25 budget. But even more interesting is that the sequels did even better. TAKEN 2: $376M w.w. off $45M budget.
TAKEN 3: $325M w.w. off $48M budget.

Moral Premise Statement: Ignoring the presence of evil leads to danger and death; but awareness and prevention of evil leads to safety and life.

Another version could be: Narcissism leads to death, bit Sacrifice leads to life.  (This would more easily embrace Kim's mother, Lenore. 

Two charts and some explanation should suffice.

DISCLAIMER: The two charts in this post are significantly determined by my subjective evaluation of  what is "a beat" and how "intense" the action is in that beat. If I did this again, the charts would look a little different. If you were to do this, they might look a lot different.

BASIS OF ANALYSIS: Most movies move through "sequences" and climax in "moments." "Moments" are often "turning points," "disasters," or "act climaxes." Typically a sequence might have a screen duration of 8-11 minutes, and the climactic moment at the end of the sequence might be 1-4 minutes long. Elsewhere on this blog I write about Paul Gulino's Sequence Approach of dividing the feature motion picture into 8 shorter "sequence" movies, that when strung together gives you the full length feature. At the end of each sequence is a climax, disaster or turning point of some type. What we tend to find is that moments are portrayed in real time and involve a lot of tension, action or decision making; while sequences are portrayed as taking hours or days and involve less tension, little action and are used to "setup" the next moment, or turning point. This sort of structure is very evident in TAKEN.

CHART 1: Beat Action vs. Beat Duration in TAKEN (2008)

This first chart is something new for me. It shows in blue the action intensity of each dramatic "beat" on a scale of 1-10. The orange shows the corresponding "beat" duration in minutes.  Those familiar with the beat structure I teach may remember that a motion picture typically as somewhere between 13-22 major beats. The chart above has 34. I didn't add anything, I simply split up some of the long sequence beats (that could be 12-15 min long) into collections of scenes that seemed to go together as a short sequence. One of the guidelines here were "set pieces" where a great deal of action took place and was isolated. In a movie like TAKEN our hero (Bryan Mills) is on a hunt and he moves from location to location, or set to set, in his pursuit. That's why there are 34, and not 22 or less. Thus, in the chart above the x-axis divisions are equal, and the duration of the 34 beats varies from about 25 seconds to 5 minutes and is indicated by the height of the peaks and valleys of the orange area.

OBSERVATION: I was actually looking for a pattern and I may be reading into this more than is evident. However, I have a theory that in good action thriller films, as the story unfolds, the sequences become shorter and the moments become longer. Since the  moments are where the action is, such a plan would accelerate the action as we get closer to the end. Also, since sequences set up moments, they can be shorter and shorter toward the end because our knowledge about the story world increases as we move deeper into the story and so we need to know less for each new setup.

The above chart suggests this theory. The volume of the orange (beat duration) clearly decreases as the movie unreels, and the the blue (action intensity) clearly increases correspondingly.

Okay, enough of that. Here's the mother-load.

CHART 2: Action Intensity vs. Minutes in TAKEN (2008)

(Click on the chart to enlarge it.) The data of the two charts comes from the same action analysis—that is, the same 34 beats used in Chart 1. Here however, each beat's length is visualized by the width of each column (from about 25 seconds to 5 min 18 seconds).

LABELS
The round tangerine circles indicate important moments:

• I.I. = Inciting Incident.
• A1X = Act 1 Climax
• A2 = Beginning of Act 2 (Crossing the Threshold)
• PPA = Pinch Point A
• MOG = Moment of Grace (Mid Point)
• PPB = Pinch Point B
• PPB2 = Another Pinch Point in Act 2B.
• A2X = Act 2 Climax
• R = Resurrection Beat
• A3X = Act 3 Climax (Final hand to hand battle)

GOALS
Bryan has two goals stated and implied in the Act 1 Climax. Each goal has three parts.

Goal 1. Re: the Kidnappers: "I will look for you. I will find you. I will kill you." (Explicitly stated)
Those three goals are achieved at G:1A, G:1B, and G:1C.

2. Re: his daughter, Kim: "I will look for you. I will find you. I will save you." (Implied)
Those three goals are achieved at G:2A, G:2B, and G:2C.

Notice how the goals are established simultaneously just before he crosses the threshold into Act 2. These are the story questions that the audience hangs on and hopes are all answered: "Will Bryan look for, find and kill the bad guys; and will he look for, find and save his daughter?" Notice how the achievement of the second and third goals are spread out, so the audience always has something to look forward to. A good story holds a carrot out in front, leading us to the end, and the end better be the most important of all the goals. Imagine how dull this movie would be if Kim was rescued early in Act 2—there might be three more goals to achieve, but since Kim is rescued, who cares. "Let's leave." Rightly, the filmmakers rescue Kim at the very end.

THREE DAUGHTERS
Assuming you've watched the movie, notice how there are three daughters that Bryan rescues, each of whom foreshadows the rescue of Kim, his biological daughter. Notice also how the first rescue is from a knife wielding man -- as is the last (bookends). Notice how Bryan acts like a caring father to each of the girls, even though the first two are NOT his daughters. The filmmakers do a good job (casting mostly) by revealing the ironic character of our hero. They never say it, they just show it—at once, he is both extremely ruthless and kind. This trait intrigues our audience in deep, deep ways. It is classically ironic and provides a secondary hook to intrigue the audience.

I will not explain the various beat criteria and how this movie fits them, except to say it does with a few noteworthy exceptions.

EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE

Exceptions to beat structure work when they are natural to the dynamic of the story. Usually such divergences enhance the organic and natural structure an audience expects. TAKEN is no exception regarding these exceptions.

1. MOMENTS and TURNING POINTS

Major Turning Points: Ideal vs. Actual

• Inciting Incident: Ideal 12.5%, TAKEN 15%.
• Act 1 Climax: Ideal 25%, TAKEN 30%
• Moment of Grace: Ideal 50%, TAKEN 54%
• Act 2 Climax: Ideal 75%, TAKEN 87%
• Final Conflict: Ideal 95%, TAKEN 94%

The differences here are all the consequence of respecting the story's dynamic. Noteworthy is that the Act 2 Climax (Near Death) is delayed because there are two wonderful Pinch Points in Act 2B.

2. NO TIME FOR DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

Notice that the Climax of Act 2 (NEAR DEATH) is slammed up next to Bryan's Resurrection Beat, when he pulls the steam pipe out of the ceiling. This again is a good example of the filmmaker respecting the dynamics of an action thriller in the third act. Who wants to wait around for some hero to mope? In DIE HARD, we have a Protagonist, and so the Dark Night of the Soul is a necessary couple of minutes for John McClane to mope about. There's even time for a confessional scene between the sinner (John McClain) and the authority figure or priest (Sgt. Al Powell). But TAKEN does not have a PROTAGONIST; it has a HERO. The difference? See Hero vs. Protagonist post. 

3. MOMENT OF GRACE

Normally, what happens at the midpoint is that the protagonist recognizes the truth of the Moral Premise for the first time and makes some transformation toward it. He/she won't fully transform until Act 3, but at the midpoint, there's a realization of what the character needs to do to achieve the goal.

But in a hero-based movie, the story isn't about the transformation of the hero, but the transformation of things around him or her. So, what do you do at the midpoint? Here is what TAKEN does:

A. Bryan is offered grace the moment he sees Kim's jacket.
B. Bryan is offered grace when he realizes that here's an eyewitness who has spoken with Kim.
C. Bryan makes clear and definite progress toward his ultimate goal by getting Kim's jacket, which he holds close to his heart minutes later when there's time to reflect. And this offers grace to the audience, knowing that he's going to succeed despite all odds.
D. When the drugged girl comes around, he gets his first direct information as to where Kim is...or was, as it turns out. It's a big dose of grace. 

Addendum (added 11/12/25)

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

Aside from the structure discussed above, here is a list of storytelling techniques that emotionally capture and engage the audience. The headings are written as actions that the writer of a successful thriller like TAKEN must inculcate into the story.

A. WRITE YOUR HERO AS AN ORPHAN. One of the all-time structural favorites that sucks an audience into any story divides the story into four parts. This concept is discussed by Carol S. Pearson in her book, The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By, and is further explored by Jeffrey Alan Schechter in his book, My Story Can Beat Up Your Story, which narrows the structure down to four parts. It goes this way for the protagonist:

Act 1: Orphan

Act 2A: Wanderer

Act 2B: Warrior

Act 3: Martyr

This perfectly describes Bryan's path. At first, the filmmakers spend considerable time creating sympathy for the lonely Bryan and his adoration and longing for his daughter, Kim, even risking his career as a spy to be home for her earlier birthdays. As the movie opens, Kim celebrates her 17th. Thus, especially in the early scenes of the film, we see how he is obsessed with his princess daughter's happiness and safety. Bryan's character lives for his daughter; he has no other goal in life. Thus, the story is an exploration of what a father is willing to do to protect his daughter, even if it means risking his own life. This is also the major emotional thrust in the Bruce Willis movie Armageddon, where Harry Stamper (Willis) literally gives his life as a martyr for the future of his daughter, Grace (Liv Tyler), who stands in for humanity and all of Earth.

B. EARLY ON,  DELIVER UNMERITED HUMILIATION TO YOUR HERO. Humiliation also plays a part when Kim's affections are drawn to the birthday gift of a horse that her rich step-father presents to her, and Bryan's gift of a cheap Karaoke machine is left on the ground, all but forgotten. We yearn for Bryan to one-up Stuart's gift...which he does in the final shot of the movie. 

C. MAINTAIN YOUR HERO'S CONSTANT EMOTIONAL FOCUS.  As pointed out above, Bryan is a HERO, not a PROTAGONIST, and thus he does not have a physical arc. His goals never morph, which means they are not refined or refocused, as in many other stories where the protagonist unpacks the reality he finds himself in and adjusts his focus. His emotional motivation (if you'll allow the redundancy) remains the same from start to finish. Similarly, Bryan does not have an emotional arc. But his emotion is high and focused and can be described by one word: TENSE, and it doesn't grow deeper or relax until the very end, when Kim is safe in his arms. 

D. SURROUND YOUR HERO BY THE MORAL PREMISE VICE AT EVERY TURN. Two meaningful story adages that apply here are: (1) There is no drama without conflict, and (2) The antagonistic force (the villain) must be pervasive and all-powerful.  The conflict begins at the level of values—psychological values, from which evil actions are encouraged and launched. Since we have a hero (who has no arc) and who is willing to sacrifice his life to protect life, that means he (Bryan) must be surrounded by the opposite. Pervasively, surrounded by the values that oppose him.  Look back at the moral premise statements at the beginning of this post. The value dipoles are Narcissism vs Sacrifice, and Ignoring Evil vs Awareness of Evil. We can stick with the first dipole for this point: Bryan must be surrounded by a Narcissists...and he is, beginning with Lenore (his ex-wife), Kim (his daughter), Stuart (Kim's step-father), and Amanda (Kim's traveling companion). Once onto his quest, the gang of thugs he encounters are all pure-bred narcissists—St. Clair, Marko, Peter, etc., all the way to the Sheik. His only friends, and they are not close, but they are helpful, are his ex-CIA buddies—Sam, Casey, and Bernie. Another way to show the vice is that everyone other than Bryan's closest friends either lies to him,  misrepresents the truth, or hides the truth. 

E. IN ACT ONE, DEMONSTRATE THE HERO'S SUPERPOWER REQUIRED TO ACHIEVE THE QUEST. Some of Bryan's skill and courage is told to us by Bryan's ex-CIA buddies, but we see it when Bryan saves pop star Sheerah's life from an assassin. 

F. THERE SHALL BE NO SLOW PARTS EXCEPT TO TAKE A SHORT BREATH.  The adage here that applies is this: Thou shalt keep your hero on the run for the entire story. He must be either running toward or away from trouble. The movie is a constant chase and race against time, and the hero's life (and his quest) is always and everywhere at stake. When the respite occurs, tension remains as the audience waits for the outcome of the respite and the chase to resume. Example: Bryan nurses a trafficked girl back to health as we wait with bated breath—the clock is ticking. Kim, in an act of love, had given the girl her jacket. Bryan has to wait for the girl to regain consciousness to ask her where she got the jacket. The answer (the red door in Paradise) sends Bryan back on the chase, but the respite is so short that the audience is still on the treadmill. When Bryan sits down with Jean-Claude's family for dinner, we know it's only for a moment before the guns come out. 

G.  THERE MUST BE A DOOMSDAY TICKING CLOCK. Right after Bryan discovers that Kim is kidnapped, he's told that he has 96 hours (4 days) or she's gone forever. 

H. THE HERO SAVES THE DAY JUST BEFORE THE TICKING CLOCK GOES BOOM. Just as Kim is rapped and taken out of Paris on a riverboat by the villain sheik, Bryan breaks into the sheik's bedroom, and before Kim's neck is cut by the sheik's jambiya dagger, Bryan shoots the sheik between the eyes.

I. THE LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS MUST BE INCOMPETENT, ABSENT, OR CORRUPT.  Jean-Claude is on the take. When Bryan chases Peter at the airport and starts a fight, a traffic jam and a traffic death, the police are nowhere in sight. The tail that Jean-Claude puts on Bryan is easily lost, just as Jean-Claude said it would happen. 

J. THE HERO MUST BE SMARTER AND STRONGER AND FASTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE, BUT NOT AT FIRST. Example: Bryan is captured, but he knows that to escape, he can pull apart a steam pipe, turn on a conveniently located valve, and douse the key thug with hot steam. It's almost deus ex machina. Bryan has friends in high and low places, having been in Paris many times in the past on spy missions. He knows the Director of International Intelligence and the owner of a cheap hotel. Bryan knows to remove the bullets from Jean-Claude's gun, which is hidden under his home's toilet. Why? Well, it feels more like a spy movie than putting the gun in a drawer next to J-C's bed.

K. THE HERO NEVER FOLLOWS UP ON HUNCHES, BUT ON CONCRETE CLUES.  Further, our hero is smart enough to take the most basic of clues and know exactly where to look. Examples: Bryan finds the SD card from Kim' phone that has a picture on it of Kim and Amanda at the airport, and in the reflection of the poster ad behind Kim and Amanda is a reflection of Peter, the thug that Bryan recognizes and chases. The girl with Kim's jacket tells him to look in the "red door" in Paradise. Bryan is given the name of a Port Clichy where sex workers and trafficking are active. Through a translator, he's told to go to a construction site. 

L. THE HERO NEVER WASTES TIME TRACKING DOWN BLIND ALLEYS OR RED HERRINGS. Blind Alleys and Red Herrings are for mysteries. This is the basic difference between mysteries and thrillers. In a thriller, every clue is productive and leads closer and closer to greater danger, an escalation of risks, and the culmination of the quest—Bryan's daughter.

M. THE HERO HAS ACCESS TO NECESSARY TECHNOLOGY AND TRANSPORTATION WHENEVER HE NEEDS IT. Bryan knows where the photo kiosk is that will take Kim's SD card and generate a picture. The kiosk will also enlarge and enhance Peter's reflected image. Bryan is able to plant a radio bug on a thug's jacket and pick up the signal through a car's infrastructure. 

Here are no doubt more, but I really must start writing.

Characterization and The Moral Premise

As with everything in a story or script, the arc described in the moral premise needs to be present especially in each character's characterization. Not every element of characterization needs to arc, but arc'ing a few would strengthen the story. My online Storycraft Training Series (click on the link to access the training) teaches you how to do this in many ways. As an extension to that valuable training, here is a description of characterization and how it adds to the elegancy of the moral premise method of storytelling.

You can categorize characterization in the following ways:

Appearance. This refers to wardrobe, mannerisms, and hygiene. Do your characters look like, act, and dress like who they really are? Is this correlation obvious, obscured, and ironic? Do they dress down because of their humility or are they hiding something? Do they dress up out of arrogance or to compensate for a sense of inferiority? Do they refuse to care for their health because they hate who they are? How does their appearance change or not during the course of the story? A good writer will plan this arc, and it's clarity (or it's obscurity), to subliminally reinforce the moral premise of the story.

Action: This refers to their decisions to choose one course of action vs. another normally associated with the turning points of a plot (or subplot). What does the character do? What don't they do? What do they consider doing...or not doing? Is there an indication that they would like to do something but they turn from it, or that they don't want to do something but they do it anyway? While this is easy to describe in a novel with internal monologue, it's a bit more of an art in a screenplay where you only have physical actions to describe in the action paragraph or in the nonverbal of dialogue.  (Yes, you can explain it in dialogue, but don't.) A good writer will plan this arc (as they plot the action), to explicitly reinforce the moral premise of the story.

Appearances in a movie are an important
part of characterization. Above, Chris Hemsworth
prepares for his role in HEART OF THE SEA.

Dialogue: How does the character speak in use of grammar, confidence, dialect? How do these elements contrast and compare to other characters? Can we distinguish who is talking if there are no character tags above each dialogue line? While you may think these characteristics may stay constant throughout a story, the best stories find a way to arc this element. In real life, once, during a flight from Michigan to California, I sat next to man who felt obliged to communicate a particular persona to me through a distinct pattern of speech. As we talked during the four hour trip his speech slowly changed to that of normal midwesterner. As we said our goodbyes in the LAX terminal, he had morphed into an entirely different character than the one I sat next to leaving DTW. I thought, if this can happen that quickly in real life, then such a change in a 120 minute motion picture is not unrealistic. And, if those speech patterns are logically connected to the moral premise' weakness and strength, you have a reinforced arc that will connect emotionally with audiences. A good writer will imbue this into their characterizations. 

Arc: This refers primarily to the main turning points of the main plot and multiple subplots. How does the character moral decision making change throughout the story and how does that change relate to whether they are a good guy or a bad guy? The assumption is that a good guy will always get better and a bad guy will get his comeuppance. This reflects audience expectations of characterization in a broad overall sense. But irony plays an important role in keeping an audience's attention. Can you make a character more interesting my plotting their action in a way that "stings" the audience? Does your protagonist fake her own death, but not let the audience in on the trick? Do they appear to tell the truth, but are in fact lying? Do they take actions that seem malevolent, but turn out to be merciful? Keep your audience guessing by thus enriching your character's characterization. But never, EVER, be irrational about the character's arc. Natural Law is your friend, because the turning points of a story, while perhaps manipulated by the character's values, will always arc back to nature in the end. To do otherwise will cheat and irritate your audience. 

Internal motivation/values: This refers to what drives all the action of every story. It's what the character's believe above all else will bring them happiness. While this element is mostly hidden in a screenplay, it's important that the writer have this firmly in their mind so the subtleties of writing and the choice of words and the length of sentences and dialogue and everything else subtly reflect who the character is and what he/she hope to be. Characterization originates from the character's most intimately held values....those articulated in the moral premise statement. Those values control everything they are, think and do. For characterization to ring true to your audience/reader, you must never violate the natural law connection between a value, and when acted upon the physical consequence. The consequence may be delayed, thus encouraging a vice/weakness the character has, but ultimately their internal motivation will reward them—good or bad. It is in this manner that the physical consequences (what we "see" in the story) become metaphors for the character's true self. Characterization is how we see that trueness, oftentimes before the consequence hits. A good writer will have this figured out ahead of time, or (if you're a pantser) do it by instinct. 

Introduction: In a screenplay, the introduction of a significant character is that one sentence allowed the screenwriter to tell us who the character really is...or at least at that moment who the screenwriter wants the reader to think the character is. The introduction is explicit, omniscient characterization. The writer is allowed to describe the internal motivations and values of the character hopefully by connecting it to some physical and visible element. Example: "A debonair young man whose mind was always in the gutter."  "A mindless beauty who was totally innocent of her affect on the opposite sex." "A woman whose intentions were always good but who's affect was always unwelcome." "Jacob was the syndicate boss who ordered the death of hundreds but secretly he wanted to be a weekend preacher and save souls  especially his own." Novelists have much more leeway to use a whole scene, of every chapter, to flesh out such characterization. The good writer will carefully manipulate this description to set up the character's values, arc, and appearance to entrap the reader's emotions as the story unfolds. 

Hopefully evident in those last examples (and should be evident in all the other characterization elements) is the concept of irony. "It was the best of days it was the worst of days, they were the best of people but they were entirely flawed." I think more than anything else the natural, organic incorporation of such irony in characterization is what makes people and characters interesting to an audience.