- "I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."
- ―Bryan Mills to the kidnappers of his daughter
Bryan Mills is a former CIA operative and the protagonist of the Taken film series. After becoming divorced due to the strain his career put on his marriage, he decided that family was more important to him than his job. He quit his job and decided to spend time more frequently with his ex-wife Lenore, and his daughter Kim.
Biography[]
Background[]
Born in the United States of America to Sarah Mills on June 15, 1957, Bryan Mills enlisted in the United States Army in 1979, then he was assigned to Special Forces in 1981. He was subsequently employed in the CIA and worked as a "preventer" as he called it. His actual position in the CIA was a paramilitary operations officer or specialized skills officer. In his adulthood, he also married Lenore, and sired Kimberly Mills with her. Due to the strain on his marriage due to him being away so often, Lenore eventually divorced Bryan, who would later marry a man named Stuart St. John. As a result of the strain that his career put on his family life, Bryan decided that he missed his family more than his career, so he retired from his government services.
Taken[]
Overshadowed[]
Bryan wrapping Kim's birthday present.
In 2008, deciding his career was repetitive and he could be closer to his kin, Bryan entered retirement and has moved to Los Angeles to have a closer relationship with Kim, who was now a teenager. While working as security with former colleagues, Bryan saves pop star Sheerah from an assailant after a concert. Sheerah, grateful, agrees to tutor Kim after Bryan says she aspires to be a singer. Kim asks Bryan for permission to travel to Paris, France, with her friend Amanda. Bryan balks at the two girls travelling alone, but relents when Lenore complains that he is overprotective. He gives Kim an international cellphone, and makes her promise to call every day. At the airport, he learns that the girls are not staying in Paris, but are following the band U2 during their European tour.
Kim's abduction[]
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Bryan calling Kim when she is abducted.
Arriving in Paris, Kim and Amanda meet Peter, a scout for a kidnapping gang, who offers to share a cab with them. At the apartment, Kim discovers that Amanda's cousins, with whom they are staying, are in Spain. While talking to Bryan on the phone in the bathroom, Kim sees Amanda being kidnapped by intruders. Bryan instructs her to go to the nearest room and hide under a bed. He explains that when the men find her, she has to shout out their physical descriptions. Kim is pulled out violently from under the bed, and she complies with her father's instructions before the phone is found and destroyed.
Rescuing Kim[]
- "You could have made this much less painful if you had been more concerned about my daughter, and less concerned about your goddamned desk. Please apologize to your wife for me."
- ―Bryan Mills to Jean-Claude Pitrel
Bryan informs Stuart and Lenore of their daughter's kidnapping. Bryan's former colleague Sam Gilroy tells him that based on the recording, Kim has probably been taken by an Albanian human trafficking ring that has recently begun abducting female tourists to get them addicted to drugs and sell them into prostitution. He also says that if she is not rescued within 96 hours, she will likely never be found. Bryan travels to Paris, and finds Peter at the airport attempting to lure another tourist. After a confrontation and chase, Peter is hit and killed by a passing truck before Bryan can interrogate him.
Bryan then seeks out Jean-Claude Pitrel, a former French intelligence officer who now works a desk job. Jean-Claude is relatively unhelpful but does direct Bryan to a district where a gang are prostituting women. Jean-Claude afterwards has the police put a tail on Bryan and soon warns Bryan that his vigilante methods will result in him getting deported, but Bryan avoids arrest. Bryan follows one gangster to a makeshift brothel at a construction site, where he finds a girl wearing Kim's jacket. He fights off the brothel guards and escapes with the girl. After the girl awakens, she gives Bryan enough information about the house where she met Kim to allow him to find it.
Bryan confronts the Albanians, and identifies the kidnapper on the phone as Marko. He wounds Marko and kills the others. Searching the house, he finds several captive teens, including Amanda, who is dead from an apparent overdose. In the basement of the house, Bryan straps Marko into a makeshift electric chair and tortures him into divulging Kim's location; as a virgin, she was very valuable on the black market, and was sold to an auctioneer named Patrice Saint-Clair. Bryan leaves Marko to die, and visits Jean-Claude at home. Having deduced that Jean-Claude is taking kickbacks from the kidnappers, he extracts Saint-Clair's home address by threatening to kill his wife.
Bryan taking aim at the man holding Kim as a human shield.
Bryan infiltrates Saint-Clair's mansion, where a large party is the facade for an auction of girls in the basement. Bryan forces a Middle-Eastern bidder to purchase his daughter, but is captured after they exit the room. However, Bryan frees himself and kills Saint-Clair's henchmen. He then forces Saint-Clair to reveal where Kim has been taken before killing him. Bryan races the luxury yacht owned by Raman, a sheikh, and boards it. There, he kills the boat's guards, confronts the sheikh in his boudoir, and shoots him in the head, rescuing his daughter.
Returning Home[]
- "When someone says "hi," it's usually polite to say "hi" back."
- ―Bryan to Kim.
Bryan introduces Kim to Sheerah.
Safe at last, they return to the United States together, where Kim is happily reunited with her mother and stepfather. Bryan declined a ride, opting to take a taxi instead. Afterward, Bryan took Kim to see Sheerah for her first singing lesson, telling her that when someone says 'hi' it is typically polite to respond in turn. She closed the door behind Bryan and his daughter.
Taken 2[]
Bryan taking aim.
The funerals of the Albanian mobsters killed by Bryan in the prior film are held in Tropojë, Albania. Murad, the leader of the gang and father of Marko vows to capture Bryan, bring him to the graves and avenge their loved ones. He and his men torture Jean-Claude Pitrel to try to learn Bryan's location. They end up bribing an official for the information.
Meanwhile, Kim and Lenore, who is currently having marital problems, surprise Bryan by joining him in Istanbul, Turkey, where he has just finished a three-day security job. The next day, Lenore and Bryan go out for lunch. Bryan realizes they are being followed. After a chase, the men capture Lenore, forcing Bryan to surrender, but before he does, he calls Kim and warns her. Her would-be abductors shoot another hotel guest and two security guards, but fail to find her and are forced to flee.
Bryan wakes with his hands tied to a pole in a dark room. Using a communication device that he had hidden in his sock, Bryan calls Kim, instructing her to go to the US Embassy and tell them what happened, but she begs for a chance to help him and Lenore. Under Bryan's guidance, she opens his suitcase, containing weapons, and throws a grenade onto a deserted rooftop parking lot. Bryan uses the time it takes for the sound of the explosion to reach him to help locate where he is. He then has her take a gun and two more grenades and takes to the rooftops. While he is tied up, the Albanian mobsters bring in a struggling Lenore and hang her upside down. One takes a knife and slits a tiny gash in her throat, which will kill her if not treated.
They tell Bryan he has to watch her bleed out and die before he dies. When the mobsters leave Bryan is able to undo his chains and calls Kim to detonate two more grenades so he can determine his location. The grenade detonations enable Bryan to guide Kim close enough to see steam he sends up a chimney to mark his precise location. Kim tosses the gun down the chimney. Bryan uses it to kill the Albanians in the building, then saves Kim from her rooftop pursuer. Lenore, however, is taken away by her captors. Leaving Kim at the embassy, Bryan retraces the route to Murad's safe house, which he memorized during his abduction.
After killing the rest of the gangsters and rescuing Lenore, he confronts Murad, who confirms Bryan's guess that his two remaining sons will seek revenge if Bryan kills him. Bryan offers to let Murad live if he gives his word to end his vendetta. When the man nods his head, peter drops his gun and starts to walk away. Murad seizes it and tries to shoot peter, only to discover that Bryan has removed the last bullet. His actions prove his untrustworthiness, and he is soon killed by Bryan when he plunges him fatally onto a hook. Three weeks later, the Mills family are at a diner back home in southern California to celebrate Kim passing her driving test. They are joined, much to Bryan's surprise, by Kim's boyfriend Jamie. Kim jokingly asks her overprotective father not to shoot him.
Taken 3[]
Bryan Mills
Three years later, Bryan has returned to Los Angeles, Kim has moved out and Bryan and Lenore now have a much closer friendship. A few days before Kim's birthday, Bryan Mills unexpectedly arrives shortly after Kim verifies that she is pregnant. After a brief conversation, Bryan leaves for his apartment, where he is met by Lenore, who reveals that she and Stuart St. John are having relationship issues and that she has begun to rekindle her romantic feelings for Bryan, and she is planning to divorce Stuart, however. Bryan refuses to allow himself the pleasure of Lennie's company until such a time as she and Stuart work out their problems. On 15 April 2014, Aware of the relationship between Lennie and Bryan, Stuart comes by Bryan's apartment to ask him politely but firmly to stay away from Lennie.
The following day, Lennie texts Bryan asking if she can come by to see him and if so to pick up bagels for the time together. Bryan obliges her request, but upon returning to his apartment discovers that Lennie has been murdered. Before he can react to this development, policemen of the Los Angeles Police Department arrive on the scene and attempt to arrest Bryan on suspicion of murder. Needing time to gather actionable information to avenge his wife, protect his daughter, as well as prove his innocence, Bryan disarms and knocks out the officers, but before he can leave additional policemen arrive in the area, precipitating a heated chase through the neighborhood. Eventually, Bryan is able to elude the police by making use of an underground storm drain located in a residential garage to covertly move away from the scene. After calling Kim and informing her of Lennie's murder, Bryan sets out to investigate the homicide. Meanwhile, Franck Dotzler, a smart and highly-skilled LAPD police inspector, is assigned to Bryan's case, and begins the manhunt to locate and arrest Bryan.
Bryan begins his investigation by recovering weapons and electronics from a secure location, then retraces Lennie's footsteps, which leads him to a convenience store where he recovers surveillance footage of Lennie being grabbed by unidentified men. Before Bryan can act, LAPD detectives arrive and rearrest Bryan for murder, however when they report this information to Dotzler the inspector warns the detectives that they are being played, correctly guessing that Bryan wanted to be captured based on his discovery of Bryan's military service record. Dotzler's concerns prove justified when Bryan picks the locks on his handcuffs and commandeers the police car he is in, resulting in a vehicle chase that ends when Bryan intentionally wrecks his car in an elevator shaft to elude the LAPD. Having accessed the LAPD's systems from the patrol car's laptop during the vehicle chase, Bryan begins analysis of the information.
Meanwhile, Kim has grown increasingly irritated with both Stuart and Dotzler. After attending Lennie's funeral, she is approached by Sam Gilroy, who covertly alerts her to the presence of a bug from which Bryan is watching her. After being advised to stick to her daily routine, Kim purchases a yogurt drink and consumes it in the store before setting off for her college campus for class. After inexplicably becoming nauseated during class, Kim dismisses herself to use the restroom, where she meets with Bryan. Bryan explains that he spiked her yogurt to make her nauseous so she would have to use the restroom, then offers Kim the antidote. After removing a bug placed on Kim by the LAPD, Bryan and Kim exchange information. Bryan learns of Stuart's body guards, and after eluding the LAPD officers on campus follows the men down a scenic country route only to be ambushed by a black SUV, which pushes his car off the road. Commandeering a vehicle by force, Bryan follows the men to a liquor store where he confronts the quartet, but is unable to learn anything of use. Deducing that the men work for Stuart, Bryan abducts and harshly interrogates Stuart, who reveals that his debt to an ex-KGB Spetsnaz and Afghan War veteran operative named Oleg Malankov was the probable reason for Lennie's murder.
With assistance from his CIA colleagues and a reluctant Stuart, Bryan gains entry to Malankov's heavily guarded suite, but after dispatching the guards and mortally wounding Malankov he learns that Stuart had played both men against each other. In a delivery truck in the garage below the suite, Stuart shoots Sam and abducts Kim, intending to flee the country with the 12 million dollars he collected in life insurance from Lennie's death. Bryan, injured from his earlier encounter in Malankov's suite, gives chase in a Porsche. After locating his daughter from the tracker in her phone Bryan arrives at the airport just as Stuart's plane begins preparations for take off. After disabling the plane with the car, Bryan overpowers Stuart. Heeding Kim's pleas, he refrains from killing Stuart, but warns him to expect retribution if he escapes justice or receives a reduced prison sentence. Dotzler and the LAPD then arrive and arrest Stuart while Bryan is cleared.
In the aftermath of Stuart's arrest, Bryan, Kim, and Kim's boyfriend discuss Kim's pregnancy. After assuring Kim that whatever she decides he will support her decision, Kim informs Bryan that if the baby is a girl, she would like to name it Lenore after her mother.
Behind the Scenes[]
Appearances[]
| Films | ||||
| Taken | Taken 2 | Taken 3 | ||