Bryan Mills's History
Government service
It is revealed in the third film at 21, Bryan joined the United States Army, then at 23, he joined the Army Special Forces, which is an unusually young age for Army SOF. He then joined the CIA and worked as a "preventer" as he called it. His actual position in the CIA was a Paramilitary officer.
Divorced
Due to the strain on his marriage due to him being away so often, Lenore eventually divorced Bryan, separating him from their daughter, Kim. Lenore later remarried a man named Stuart St. John.
Retirement
After the strain that his career put on his family life, Bryan decided that he missed his family more than his career, so he retired.
Birthday tragedy
In 2008, after looking at a karaoke machine to purchase for Kim's birthday multiple times, Bryan finally purchased it. After taking it home and wrapping it, he took it to Kim at her birthday party and ignoring Lenore's wishes for Kim to open it at a later time during the party, asking Kim to open it.
Wanting to be a singer without her mother's knowledge, she shared her joy for the gift quietly with Bryan. However, soon after, Kim's stepfather Stuart brought his gift to Kim, a horse.
Kim placed Bryan's gift on the ground and ran to the horse, her preferred gift. Bryan shared his disappointment with Lenore, who reminded Bryan that Kim isn't a little girl anymore. Bryan left the party soon after.
He then does a brief bodyguarding job with three old CIA friends and saves pop singer Sheerah from an attacker. Having earlier rebuffed Brian's request to help Kim's ambition to sing professionally a grateful Sheerah gives him a card with her and her voice coach's numbers offering to help.
Kim's Trip to France
After finally achieving permission from Bryan, Kim is driven to the airport by Bryan. When he unloads her bags he discovers that she is not planning on staying in just Paris. She has a map that notes the tour dates and locations of the band U2. He confronts Lenore with this who says that if he knew about it he wouldn't let her go. He concedes and doesn't mention it to Kim.
Upon Kim arriving in France with her friend Amanda, they meet a young French man who goes by the name Peter. He takes a photo of them and invites them to share a taxi with them. Kim forgets to call Bryan which is one of their conditions in Bryan allowing her to go.
Kim's abduction
Peter is, in fact, a spotter for an Albanian human trafficking ring. He makes a call in French after Kim and Amanda move into their apartment. Kim notices her phone ringing and answers it. Due to Amanda's loud music, she goes to a bathroom on the other side of the apartment, opposite the room Amanda's in. Whilst speaking with Bryan she sees men enter her apartment and take Amanda. She tells Bryan who instructs her to move into the next room and hide under the bed. He instructs her that the men are going to take her and that when they do to shout out everything she can see.
She is dragged screaming from under the bed and does as Bryan instructs. She drops her phone and it is picked up by one of the kidnappers. Bryan begins talking to them and tells them "I don't know who you are. I don't what you want. If you're 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." To which the kidnapper overconfidently answers "Good luck" and then crushes the phone.
Bryan immediately goes to Lenore's house and on the way he sends the recording of the abduction to a friend and CIA analyst called Sam. Whilst at Lenore's house he instructs her husband Stewart to get him a plane to Paris. When he is going through Kim's belongings, Sam calls back and tells Bryan that the group that kidnapped Kim specializes in human trafficking. He further instructs Bryan that he will have 96 hours to find Kim before he loses her.
Rescuing Kim
Upon arriving in France he goes to Amanda's apartment and looks for clues as to who took the two girls. He finds Kim's smashed phone and is able to take a memory card out that contains images. Bryan uses a public photo viewing booth to go through the photos. He finds a photo that has a reflection of Peter on it. Bryan prints it out and heads to the airport. He quickly finds Peter and shoves him into a taxi. He punches him just below the ribs twice and asks him about the girls. Bryan is then pulled out of the car by Peter's spotting partner but after a short fight, Bryan dispatches the man. He then proceeds to drive the taxi and chase down Peter who is running up a freeway ramp. Bryan gets out of the car and chases Peter on foot who then jumps onto a semi-trailer below the freeway. Walking onto the road Peter is then hit by an oncoming truck and killed.
With that lead now dead Bryan goes to a former colleague in French security by the name of Jean-Claude Pitrel. Pitrel tells Bryan he can't tear down Paris. Bryan simply asks him where to find members of the group. Pitrel tells him. Bryan hires an Albanian translator as well as a car. He provokes a pimp to manhandle him so he can place a surveillance bug on him. Using the Albanian translator he is able to determine where his daughter was likely being kept. He asks the translator to get out and keeps a translation dictionary for future use.
Bryan goes to a construction site where there is a brothel containing kidnapped women. On walking through the brothel Bryan sees a jacket that belongs to Kim. He asks the woman in possession of the jacket where she got it from but due to her drug-induced intoxication she can't answer coherently. Bryan is grabbed by a member of the gang but quickly breaks his neck. Another man comes at him and Bryan kills him. One man draws a gun but he is disarmed and then killed. Another enters the room and fires an automatic weapon which kills one of the girls but is shot by the now armed Bryan. Bryan grabs the girl and the jacket and puts them into a nearby Jeep. He proceeds to be chased by members of the gang in three separate vehicles, but all are destroyed and killed. Bryan drives to a hostel that is owned by an old friend and administers an IV to the girl in order to counteract the drugs. The girl, when she wakes up, tells Bryan where she saw Kim.
Bryan goes to the house and talks his way past the two doormen, using a fake police ID. He proceeds to ask for "Marko from Tropojë" to which all the men answer they are that person. Unable to identify his daughter's kidnapper he decides to discuss how much the men will pay him to keep the police away from their operations. After negotiating the rate Bryan proceeds to ask one of them for a translation. On hearing one of the men answering in the same voice that he heard on the phone, he knocks the man unconscious, stabs the man next to him, kicks the man behind him, grabs a weapon and shoots the man at the other end of the room as well as the man he kicked. He then lies under one of the dead bodies as three more men enter the room. He raises his gun and kills all three. He proceeds through the house and kills the rest of the men inside, leaving who he now knows as Marko, unconscious on the ground. He goes through the house and clears each room. In one of the rooms, he finds Amanda who has had an overdose and is now dead.
He straps Marko to a chair and connects him to the electricity through iron rods slammed into his legs. Marko twice refuses to give Bryan any information and promptly has electricity pumped through him. After the second one, Marko gives Bryan the name of a businessman who has Kim. Bryan then fulfills his threat of killing Marko by turning the electricity on and leaving it on.
Bryan then heads to Pitrel's house in order to find where the businessman Patrice Saint-Clair is. Pitrel at firsts makes conversation with Bryan. Bryan then reveals he knows that Pitrel is corrupt. Pitrel draws his gun and tells Bryan he is going to take him to the airport. Bryan reveals that Pitrel's gun is empty by throwing the bullets at him. Bryan draws his own gun and shoots Pitrel's wife in the arm and threatens to kill her if Pitrel doesn't help him. Pitrel obliges and gives him what he wants, Bryan then knocks him unconscious.
Bryan goes to Saint-Clair's party and again talks his way in using his fake ID. He proceeds to attempt to get into an auction and kills the man operating the lift. He proceeds down to the auction where he takes the place of one of the waiters. He kills one of the assistants by slamming a silver platter into his throat. He moves into the room of one of the bidders and acts as a waiter in order to watch the auction. He sees Kim and draws his gun, forcing the man to buy her. He then orders the man to get up and leave the room.
Bryan leaves after him but is knocked unconscious. He wakes to see St Clair standing in front of him and tells him that one of the women was Kim and that he wants her back. St Clair orders his men to kill Bryan quietly. Bryan manages to loosen the pipe he is cuffed to until it falls from the ceiling, hitting one of the men on the head. Bryan knocks a steam valve on, temporarily blinding one of the men. He wrestles with one of the men until he crushes the man's neck against a railing. He then uses a fire extinguisher to disarm and kill another one. He wrestles with another who has a weapon. They fire a number of shots before Bryan shoots the man in the foot and then the head. He unlocks his cuffs and kills another guard who is sent to see what is happening. Bryan then corners St Clair in front of a lift where he finds out where Kim is being taken. He then kills Saint-Clair.
After following a car to a boat, he knocks the chauffeur unconscious and steals the car. He drives onto a street and travels down it the wrong way. He gets ahead of the boat and stops on a bridge. Bryan leaps onto the Sheikh's ship and dispatches a few guards. After a long fight through the ship and eliminating many hostiles, he engages in a close-quarters fight with the bidder he had earlier forced to buy Kim. After a brutal fight, he manages to kill the bidder with a broken bottle. Injured, Bryan enters the room of the man who has bought Kim, a Sheikh named Raman. Raman, holding Kim as a human shield at knifepoint, stares down Bryan as he takes aim.
After a few moments, Raman begins to open his mouth to speak, but Bryan merely pulls the trigger, firing a bullet into Raman's head, killing him. He lowers his weapon and comforts a crying Kim.
Returning Home
After rescuing Kim, the two returned home to the United States and are greeted by Lenore and Stuart, who now greatly appreciate Bryan, with Stuart offering him anything he needs. Bryan simply replies that he already has everything he could need.
Stuart, Lenore, and Kim enter a car, offering Bryan a ride, but he declines, stating that he'll take a taxi. They then parted ways, now in one another's good graces.
Singing Lessons for Kim
After returning to the United States, Bryan has one last surprise present for Kim. He takes her to Sheerah's home to accept the favor she had previously offered him. When Sheerah answers the door, Kim is stunned.
Bryan informs Kim that it is impolite to not say hello. Sheerah welcomes the two into her home and Bryan closes the door.
Abducted
Two years later, the funerals of the Albanian mobsters killed by Bryan Mills in the prior film are held in Tropojë, Albania. Murad, the leader of the gang and father of Marko�??whom Bryan had killed by electrocution�??vows to capture Bryan, bring him to the graves and avenge their loved ones. Murad and his men torture Jean-Claude Pitrel (the corrupt policeman from Taken) to try to learn Bryan's location. They later kill Pitrel. They end up bribing an official for the information.
Meanwhile, Kim and her mother Lenore, who is currently having marital problems with Stuart, 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. The men then hood both Bryan and a scared Lenore from her repeated muffled sayings to let her go Nos and bring them into a van.
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 triangulate his position. He then has her take a gun and two more grenades and take to the rooftops. While he is tied up, the Albanian mobsters bring in a struggling and hooded 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, Bryan drops his gun and starts to walk away. Murad seizes it and tries to shoot Bryan, 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 is 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.
Framed
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 his ex-wife, Lenore "Lenny" Mills. Lenny reveals that she and her current husband 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 Lenny'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 Lenny'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 Lenny's footsteps, which leads him to a convenience store where he recovers surveillance footage of Lenny 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 Lenny's funeral, she is approached by Sam, a CIA colleague of Bryan 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 offer Kim the antidote. After removing a bug placed on Kim by the LAPD, Bryan, and Kim exchange information. Bryan learns of Stuart's bodyguards, 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 Lenny'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 Lenny'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 takeoff. After disabling the plane with the car, Bryan confronts Stuart, who is pointing his gun at Kim's head and engages in a brief but violent struggle with him. Ultimately, Bryan emerges victorious and elects not to kill Stuart, warning him that while he may serve only a limited time in jail for Lenny's murder he will answer to Bryan for Lenny's death when he is released. but never kills him at the end. Dotzler and his LAPD officers arrive shortly afterward and arrest a now terrified Stuart.
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.
