| Director | Pierre Morel |
|---|---|
| Budget | $25 million |
| Box office | $226.8 million |
Former Green Beret and retired CIA officer Bryan Mills attempts to build a closer relationship with his 17-year-old daughter, Kim, who lives with her mother, Lenore, and her wealthy step-father, Stuart. While overseeing security at a concert for pop star Sheerah, Bryan saves her from a knife-wielding attacker. Sheerah gratefully offers to have her vocal coach assess Kim, an aspiring singer. Meanwhile, Kim asks Bryan for permission to visit Paris with her friend, Amanda. Though concerned about Kim's safety, Bryan, pressured by Lenore, reluctantly agrees. At the airport, Bryan learns that Kim and Amanda are actually planning to follow U2 during their European tour.
Upon arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Kim and Amanda meet Peter, who drives them to Amanda's cousins' apartment. There, Amanda tells Peter that her cousins are in Madrid and that they are staying there alone, a fact she hid from Kim. After they part, Peter then makes a phone call, passing along information about the girls. While talking with Bryan on her cell phone, Kim sees men entering the apartment and abducting Amanda. Upon instructions from her father, Kim yells out her captor's descriptions as she is taken. Bryan tells the kidnappers that he will avoid pursuing them if they release Kim, but threatens them with death if they fail to comply. The listener only replies, "good luck", and terminates the call. Bryan's former colleague, Sam, deduces the kidnappers belong to an Albanian sex trafficking ring, and identifies the recorded voice as its boss Marko Hoxha. Based on previous abductions, if Kim is not found within 96 hours, it is not likely Bryan will find her again.
Bryan flies to Paris. At the apartment, he finds Kim's broken phone and using its memory card, checks the photos. He identifies Peter in one of them, revealing him to be a scout for the ring. Bryan locates and apprehends Peter at the airport attempting to lure another victim, but Peter escapes after one of his associates attacks Bryan. In the ensuing pursuit, Peter is fatally run over by an oncoming truck. With his only lead dead, Bryan contacts Jean-Claude Pitrel, an ex-DGSE agent turned National Police officer. Jean-Claude informs him about the local red-light district where the Albanians operate but warns Bryan to avoid getting involved. Bryan plants a listening device on an Albanian pimp, and with help from a hired translator, is led to a makeshift brothel in a construction yard. He rescues a drugged young woman who has Kim's jacket, causing a violent gunfight that kills several sex traffickers. Bryan takes the woman to a hotel and improvises her detoxification.
The next morning, the woman informs Bryan about a safehouse where she and Kim were kept. Posing as Jean-Claude, Bryan infiltrates under the pretence of renegotiating the police protection rate. When Bryan identifies Marko by his voice, the meeting erupts into a fight, which results in several terrorists being killed. Searching the house, Bryan finds Amanda, dead from an overdose. Bryan tortures Marko with electricity into revealing that virgins like Kim are sold on the black market, identifying her buyer as crime syndicate terrorist Patrice Saint-Clair. Bryan then leaves Marko to die from continuous electrocution.
After a vicious confrontation with Jean-Claude over his corruption in order to disclose Saint-Clair's location, Bryan infiltrates a clandestine sex slave auction occurring beneath Saint-Clair's mansion. Witnessing Kim as the last sale, Bryan forces an Arab bidder to purchase her but is subsequently caught and subdued. Saint-Clair orders him killed, but Bryan breaks loose and eliminates all the henchmen; a mortally wounded Saint-Clair reveals Kim was brought to a nearby yacht before Bryan murders him.
Boarding the vessel, Bryan eliminates the bodyguards and breaks into a bedroom, where he kills a sheikh holding Kim at knifepoint. He rescues Kim and upon returning to the US, they reunite with Lenore and Stuart. Bryan surprises Kim by taking her to visit Sheerah.