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Takers wants to rewrite the heist film rulebook. It wants to infuse the genre with street savvy and true urban grit, but ends up only delivering some decent action sequences. The rest of the film is a free for all of stereotypes, cliches, and cardboard cut-out scripting. Clearly, director John Luessenhop believes in the power of slo-mo, the shaky cam, frantic editing, and lots of stylized lighting and compositions. But when it comes to getting us to care about his characters, he's as effective as an impressionist required to paint photo-realistic portraits.
Our narrative follows the escapades of five master thieves -- Jon (Paul Walker), Gordon (Idris Elba), AJ (Hayden Christensen), Jake (Michael Ealy), and Jesse (Chris Brown) -- as they live large and rob even larger. Always careful with their scores, they like a year to prepare before taking each job. When a former colleague named Ghost (Tip "TI" Harris) gets out of the slammer and suggest one last big quick haul, the guys just can't say "No" -- even with a hardboiled cop (Matt Dillion) and his partner (Jay Hernandez) breathing down their necks. Eventually, the Russian mob gets involved, turning everything far more deadly and divisive than these high minded thugs are used to.
You have to give Luessenhop credit for one thing -- you can't crib from a better source than Michael Mann's magnificent 1995 film Heat. Sure, it's highly plausible that the lawyer turned filmmaker never saw a single frame of the infamous Pacino/DeNiro LA showdown, but almost everything about Takers reeks of one too many trips to the local video store. This is a movie bereft of originality, soaking its hip-hop tinged tenets in a world of hoary old crime film truisms. The minute Ghost shows up with his sloppy, "gansta" approach, we just known our designer suit wearing desperados are heading for a world of hurt. Similarly, when Dillion and Hernandez grab a lead, we just know that proper police protocol and deductive reasoning will be replaced by abject brutality and more than a little illegal search and seizure.
This is the way the genre crumbles and Takers is game to make it as brittle and dry as possible. The screenplay (a by committee effort between four named scribes) offers the characters nothing but tried and true bon mots to deliver, stupefyingly stunted maxims like "We're takers! We take!" passing as plausible motivation. No one -- not Elba, not Walker, not the faux Vader or the music men making their big screen debut -- can invest their dialogue with anything other than alertness and articulation. If anything, Luessenhop saves his "A" game for the chase scenes, presenting enough panache and parkour spectacle to help his viewers forget the ridiculous posturing that prompts it.
In fact, it's safe to say that the best part of Takers is the firefights and fisticuffs. While the rap video bluster seems wholly dated, the pyrotechnics keep things moving at a brisk and bracing pace. Even when an unnecessary subplot is thrown our way (Elba has a drug addict sister -- played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste -- that causes him some secret pain/shame), we survive it because of the edge of your seat thrills that are usually right around the corner. Of course, said relief typically comes in neon bright primary colors that are almost blinding in their Tony Scott circa Domino designs.
In essence, Takers is a below average crime story saved by slightly above average set pieces. It's lunkheaded and lame brained but also boasts a few redeeming features here and there. If its intention was to reinvent the crime film, it fails. On a bare bones entertainment level, it's tolerable.
Our narrative follows the escapades of five master thieves -- Jon (Paul Walker), Gordon (Idris Elba), AJ (Hayden Christensen), Jake (Michael Ealy), and Jesse (Chris Brown) -- as they live large and rob even larger. Always careful with their scores, they like a year to prepare before taking each job. When a former colleague named Ghost (Tip "TI" Harris) gets out of the slammer and suggest one last big quick haul, the guys just can't say "No" -- even with a hardboiled cop (Matt Dillion) and his partner (Jay Hernandez) breathing down their necks. Eventually, the Russian mob gets involved, turning everything far more deadly and divisive than these high minded thugs are used to.
You have to give Luessenhop credit for one thing -- you can't crib from a better source than Michael Mann's magnificent 1995 film Heat. Sure, it's highly plausible that the lawyer turned filmmaker never saw a single frame of the infamous Pacino/DeNiro LA showdown, but almost everything about Takers reeks of one too many trips to the local video store. This is a movie bereft of originality, soaking its hip-hop tinged tenets in a world of hoary old crime film truisms. The minute Ghost shows up with his sloppy, "gansta" approach, we just known our designer suit wearing desperados are heading for a world of hurt. Similarly, when Dillion and Hernandez grab a lead, we just know that proper police protocol and deductive reasoning will be replaced by abject brutality and more than a little illegal search and seizure.
This is the way the genre crumbles and Takers is game to make it as brittle and dry as possible. The screenplay (a by committee effort between four named scribes) offers the characters nothing but tried and true bon mots to deliver, stupefyingly stunted maxims like "We're takers! We take!" passing as plausible motivation. No one -- not Elba, not Walker, not the faux Vader or the music men making their big screen debut -- can invest their dialogue with anything other than alertness and articulation. If anything, Luessenhop saves his "A" game for the chase scenes, presenting enough panache and parkour spectacle to help his viewers forget the ridiculous posturing that prompts it.
In fact, it's safe to say that the best part of Takers is the firefights and fisticuffs. While the rap video bluster seems wholly dated, the pyrotechnics keep things moving at a brisk and bracing pace. Even when an unnecessary subplot is thrown our way (Elba has a drug addict sister -- played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste -- that causes him some secret pain/shame), we survive it because of the edge of your seat thrills that are usually right around the corner. Of course, said relief typically comes in neon bright primary colors that are almost blinding in their Tony Scott circa Domino designs.
In essence, Takers is a below average crime story saved by slightly above average set pieces. It's lunkheaded and lame brained but also boasts a few redeeming features here and there. If its intention was to reinvent the crime film, it fails. On a bare bones entertainment level, it's tolerable.
