"I'm not the same man you chased away all those years ago. Find my daughter!" Years after he left Damascus under suspicious circumstances, Adib Abdel Kareem (Siddig) returns when he finds out that his daughter has gone missing. When he meets people from his past he is forced not only to confront his earlier life consequences but also find his daughter before its too late. This is a movie that is good, fast moving and worth watching, but also a little generic. There really isn't much to say about this one. Father finds out his daughter is missing, he is forced to seek help from those he has had previous problems with, encounters resistance. I did like the movie and I do think it's worth watching and while it is pretty tense I found that the daughter storyline seemed to have gotten lost in the jumble of what was going on. When you watch that will make sense. Overall, a movie that is good and well worth checking out but it is a tad generic. I give it a B.

What can I say..... Taken 2 was a weak follow on from the original which was quite a fresh approach to a mild action movie, this is neither. This makes Taken 2 seem fast paced and full of kick ass. If you enjoy slow moving stories with the actors seemingly pausing to buy time (or remember their lines) this is for you. I should have turned off after the titles. I did eventually switch off after an hour. The characters are boring, slow paced, uninterested in their role and I can only imagine the director saw what a train crash this was going to be and left halfway through filming! The main actor excelled in Deep space 9 and was even watchable in Primeval but in this movie he just seems bored and certainly not overly concerned about his missing daughters welfare. Snore,,, watch at your peril! Sci fi channel movies seem glossy and well written/acted compared to this mess. 1/10 cos it's the lowest I can give. You may see higher ratings from Canadians who have watched this film, they're being patriotic, trust me.

I'm somewhat baffled by the ratings here. This is clearly not an extreme film, yet there are so many 10s. And 1s.It is a good enough film. It's a sort of detective action movie, involving a Canadian returning to his native Syria to rescue his daughter who is held captive because of something in his past. It kept my attention the whole time (even though I really should have been at home asleep).Some changes I would have made if I had no constraints (a) replace the TV actors with unknowns, and (b) shoot in the mid-east. It's worth delaying the film to make it the best it can be.In summary, it's a competent telling of the "good but flawed Western hero goes to bad non-Western country to rescue lost family member" story. If you want a Canada-Syria version of that story, then this may be that film. I'll have to leave it for others to comment on how accurately Syria is portrayed, as I have no idea.

I was very pleased to see this movie was willing to bring the action, as good as Ruba Nadda's romantic-leaning films Cairo Time and Sabah were. But where this film about a father who flies to a dangerous land to rescue his daughter from an unknown threat is different from Taken is that the hero is flesh and blood and approaches the problem in a civilized way first and by the time there is fighting we can feel a sense of consequence. It has been said that the movie starts off fast. It starts as it should and as I reflected afterwards it avoids stock shots of a plane taking off and gives the impression of travel with aerial shot of a road the hero is riding along in a car. Cinematic short-hand. At the same time, it manages to avoid scenes that would be obvious beats in a lesser movie, like the panic of the mother upon learning of the crisis. Instead we see the moment before, as she watches her husband on the phone preparing to make the trip and confront the problem. There is just enough of the Canadian wife in this movie, considering that she would not compete with Marisa Tomei who "blends" into her environment and feels authentic. Even to the end I am thinking I hope Tomei's character makes out alright. Alexander Siddig is not playing a super human but someone who is willing to face the worst and some real consequences to find his daughter. Joshua Jackson as a Canadian embassy guy manages to show several divergent aspects of his role without falling into any traps that would be central to a lesser movie with similar layers. Had Siddig been playing a typical action hero, he would have to cross a line into sociopath to clear away all the bad guys at once. He gets some good shots in and we can cheer for him, and one secret police figure is especially smug and needs to be killed but the way this film arrives at what has to happen is to take a left turn into character-motivated choices that are refreshing for the genre. Where there is tension, we are absolutely rooted in the reality of the moment by Siddig's expression. This is real for him and for us.I have read a comment/review here on IMDb by one "A P" that seems to be a screaming stream of lies, one after the other. I contest his claim that people walked out during the TIFF screening. The movie grabs your attention and Siddig has a strong presence. There is a reason for every scene and not a moment is wasted. Any politics I took for granted. One villain is identified as Israeli but even he is redeemed. This is not a political tract. As I watched the story unfold as a Caucasian Canadian male I looked at the cultural aspect as colour that Ruba brings but the concept of a hero's descent into a special and dangerous world is one that we know and accept as classic myth. I had no problem identifying with Siddig's character, often called "Mr. Toronto" by an innkeeper in the film, and seeing it through his eyes. I am stunned by the current low numerical rating this movie has on IMDb and I trust that the more people see it the more the rating will improve. I noticed in a TIFF guide or other such publication Inescapable was misidentified as a romance. There is a restrained and heartbreaking lost love woven through the story, but it is a thriller that is correctly paced and set- up. It has action, though the build up is half the entertainment. I highly recommend seeing this movie.