Analysis of Taken trailer

'Taken' is a film which falls into the action and the crime genre. It is about a girl and her friend who are kidnapped on their trip to Paris to be sold for prostitution, the girl's father, a retired CIA agent travels across Europe to try and save her. It is rated a 15 so attracts a wide audience as the crime/action genre is popular with both genders and attracts younger and older people. 

The trailer starts with a mid shot of the retired CIA agent and we then see his daughter run up to him and shout 'dad', this immediately establishes the relationship between them both and indicates to the audience that they could be the main characters. We then see her asking her Dad if she can go to Paris, which is accompanied with establishing shots of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. Over this slow, sad music plays indicating that something bad is going to happen. Then we see a sound bridge of a photo being taken, a black title screen saying '20th century fox presents' and an aeroplane, it is loud and links all the noise together dding dramatic effect.

There is then a gradual zoom on a mobile ringing and dramatic non - diegetic music begins to play. There is then an example of cross cutting whilst a phone call takes place between the father and daughter. We see close ups of the girls face as she starts to get scared, as the dad says 'they are going to take you' there is a shot of the girl being dragged out from under the bed screaming. This causes the audience to sympathise with her but also raises many questions and encourages them to go and see the film. 

We then hear the dad's speech to his daughters kidnapper which also features on the films poster and is seen as the most important quote in the film as he threatens to hunt then down and kill them. With this speech a montage of shots are shown which indicate the storyline as we see him taking part in the cliched action fighting scenes. We also see the emotional mother which is a cliche in crime films and this is another character the audience can already sympathise with. Towards the end of the trailer, as typical in most action trailers, it becomes more fast paced we see a huge explosion which is a common convention in action films. The dramatic music then stops and we just hear heavy breathing on the other end of the phone followed by the words 'good luck.' This adds a twist to the trailer and intrigues the audience into wanting to know if this man is going to succeed in getting his daughter back. This trailer raises a lot of questions for the audience  it leaves many questions unanswered, such as what actually happens to his daughter, this encourages the viewer of the trailer to actually go and see the film. It follows the cliche of crime films of retired policemen, in this case a former member of the CIA, using the skills they learnt in their work for their own use. It also features many conventions of action films as we see the fighting scenes and the big explosion, and we assume the girls dad is going to be the hero of the film.