Taken Away is the tragic story of Stephanie, who loves her only child, Abby... but she's single and working by day, going to school in the night and Abby convinces Stephanie one day to let her stay home alone... next thing Stephanie knows, her daughter is taken from her and placed in custody with some nasty children taken in by the state. Stephanie's only hope to get Abby back is for the courts to realize that a mistake was made, with the help of Lombardi, a lawyer who at first doesn't give a damn about Stephanie's case but soon realizes that Stephanie is a very good mother and he does his best to help out.
Taken Away does make some good points about the injustice of the system when it comes to child abuse. Child abuse is never right, but if no abuse ever occurred between the child and parent, then what? Isn't it wrong to put a child through turmoil in foster care when the parents never did anything wrong? Still, this movie also highly exaggerates things. I mean, right away you know it's going to be overly dramatic when action music plays as a mom crosses the street to the court. But it just goes way too far at times. I'm not saying that courts don't make mistakes, but there's a scene where Abby's stuffed animal is ripped apart by other children and the staff don't even care... most often the children who did this would be either punished or provided with a counselor to discuss their anger issues and emotions. This unrealistic scene, among others, makes this movie very difficult to take seriously.
If you watch Taken Away, it's better to just watch it to pass the time and not take it too seriously. On the bright side, the acting and soundtrack weren't bad and it has nostalgic value if you ever saw it on TV as a kid.
Taken Away does make some good points about the injustice of the system when it comes to child abuse. Child abuse is never right, but if no abuse ever occurred between the child and parent, then what? Isn't it wrong to put a child through turmoil in foster care when the parents never did anything wrong? Still, this movie also highly exaggerates things. I mean, right away you know it's going to be overly dramatic when action music plays as a mom crosses the street to the court. But it just goes way too far at times. I'm not saying that courts don't make mistakes, but there's a scene where Abby's stuffed animal is ripped apart by other children and the staff don't even care... most often the children who did this would be either punished or provided with a counselor to discuss their anger issues and emotions. This unrealistic scene, among others, makes this movie very difficult to take seriously.
If you watch Taken Away, it's better to just watch it to pass the time and not take it too seriously. On the bright side, the acting and soundtrack weren't bad and it has nostalgic value if you ever saw it on TV as a kid.
