I went to see the movie “Taken” on Sunday, and I was very, very pleased.

You know that scene in “Sleepless in Seattle,” where the women are talking about the movies that make them cry, and one of the guys says, “I always cry at the end of ‘The Dirty Dozen”?

I think a lot of guys are sitting in theaters, grateful for the darkness, watching this one, because there’s a little tear in their eyes at the end of “Taken.” They’re not blubbering like girls, mind you. Just a little liquid atop the lid, a little flutter in the stomach.

Because “Taken” is about a guy who does what a guy has to do, and gets his due. A father who—for the first time in a long time, in any movie that I know of—actually knows what he’s talking about, and should have been listened to in the first place.

The plot is simple: Human sex traffickers kidnap the wrong dude’s daughter.

It’s a sentimental story in a way, but in a guy’s way. The guy, Bryan Mills (Gary Coopered by Liam Neeson) has made a promise to his daughter that if she gets in trouble on her vacation in Paris, he’ll come and get her. She does get in trouble, so he does what he said he’ll do. He’s qualified to do this because he’s a retired counterterrorism agent. His enemies underestimate him, assuming there will be limits to what he’ll do to achieve his goal. They are greatly mistaken in this. He will do anything—including some very ugly stuff (usually—but not exclusively—done to very ugly people) to get his daughter back.

Very satisfying. The kind of movie they stopped making sometime back in the ’80s.

The only thing wrong with it is the “Bourne”-style, shaky cam fast-cut technique employed in the action scenes. Am I the only person who’s beginning to suspect that filmmakers are using this technique, not to make the movies more exciting, but because it saves them all the hard work of actually thinking the action through?

Anyway, I recommend it, for guys. And for women who like guy movies. Not for kids.