Takers **½

Coming just one week after the intelligent grown up crime thriller The Town, Takers is another crime thriller that is seemingly cut from the same cloth, albeit one that is a lot less sophisticated with a greater emphasis on action than on drama. This film also boasts quite an impressive cast, even if its stars are a lot less prestigious, but behind the camera there isn’t a whole lot of talent to speak of.
The only particularly recognisable names are Tip ‘T.I. Harris as producer and Chris Brown as executive producer (both of whom appear among this film’s cast) while for director John Luessenhop this is only his second film after little seen 2000 drama Lockdown and even the writers have few if any credits behind them. And based on this film, it is quite possible that they may not have too many credits ahead of them either.

Gordon Jennings (Idris Elba) is a charismatic criminal mastermind who leads a notorious gang of criminals whose volatile members include John Rahway, ‘The Bagman’ (Paul Walker), Jesse Attica, ‘The Runner’ (Chris Brown), A. J. ‘The Builder’ (Hayden Christensen) and Jake Attica ‘The Gunman’ (Michael Ealy). Every year these slick and stylish criminals pull off another in a series of perfectly executed bank robberies, priding themselves on getting in and out like clockwork, leaving no evidence behind and laying low in between heists. But this changes when a past member of their team, Ghost ‘The Smooth Talker’ (Tip ‘T.I.’ Harris), comes out of prison, having served a sentence after being caught during a previous robbery. Angry at the team for taking his money and for Jake taking his girlfriend Rachel (Zoe Saldana), he nonetheless seems happy to be back with the group, proposing a high risk job due to take place in just a few days time. The problem is that the group are unsure as to whether they can trust Ghost and that this job – the robbery of an armoured truck – may be one of the hardest jobs they have attempted yet. Not only that but this time the crew find their plans interrupted by hardened detectives Jack Welles (Matt Dillon) and Eddie Hatcher (Jay Hernandez) who are hell-bent on bringing them down.

Whether or not you like Takers will depend on exactly what it is that you look for in a crime thriller such as this. If it is action that you seek then you may find quite a lot to enjoy in the fact and kinetic action sequences that are on display here, which prove quite thrilling and are only hampered by handheld camera work that is occasionally too shaky and fast cut editing that sometimes makes it hard to keep track of what is going on. A heist sequence that is quite audacious and spectacular is certainly enough to get the pulse racing as well. If, however, you like your crime thrillers to also boast a strong storyline and engaging characters, you will likely hold very little appreciation for this film. This is a film that largely fails as a drama, managing to provide some substance later on but many of its attempts at injecting a dramatic element into proceedings seeming forced and not enough being put effort into humanising many of the characters. It’s a shame because the acting is actually pretty good, even when the cast members aren’t being given anything particularly substantial to do, with Matt Dillon and Idris Elba being almost excellent, although Zoe Saldana, in a very brief appearance, is completely wasted, all that is really required of her being to look good. The film’s real achilles heel is the writing with the plotting being weak, the story confusing and borderline incoherent at times and the dialogue poor. Amazingly, it took four (yes, four!) people to write this and their lack of experience is blatantly obvious throughout. This same lack of experience is also clear in the direction with director John Luessenhop failing to deliver anything that shows any substantial ability on his part. So, Takers is not a film without merits but largely comes across as a pretty mediocre piece of filmmaking. To those simply looking for an action movie it certainly has the capacity to entertain but anyone looking for greater substance may feel like their time and money has been taken from them.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)

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