Heist movie is fast paced but fails to climb out of a cliché.
Artwork by Mia Nogueira
How many times do I have to watch a great heist only to see the thieves push their luck and end up dead or in the slammer?
One too many times, perhaps?
Sure, it makes for a good movie, but when you’ve seen one deal gone south or one backstabbing robber, you’ve seen ‘em all. Couple that with a weak script and some underdeveloped characters, and the result is Takers: a decent B-movie heist that would have done much better earlier in the summer when students in the midst of break had nothing better to do.
Takers focuses around – yes, you guessed it – a band of gentlemen thieves. Or is it really about the detectives chasing them? The entire movie I couldn’t really tell who I was supposed to be rooting for. At first I expected it to be a chase thriller with the cops on the bad guys’ trail, seeing as the first scene involves the two of them on their way to bust some drug dealers. But then I thought it would be like Heat with the criminals trying to get away after the job of a lifetime. The opening heist is probably the film’s strongest point, as it is done cleanly and precisely, with the masked men making off with millions. They’re professional and devious, even going so far as to disguise one of the thieves as a guard who waves down a news chopper looking for a scoop, only to pull a gun on the unsuspecting journalists and make the chopper their getaway vehicle. But after that precise heist, the movie slips and falls into a pit full of clichés out of which it cannot climb.
The most crucial mistake in Takers? Casting too many rappers as actors in one movie. Hey, I’ll be the first to admit that I know nothing about rap, and for all I know, T.I. and Chris Brown are great guys and/or great rappers. But they are not great actors. The gang of thieves consists of a rag-tag group of characters that are never really developed at all. Brothers Jesse and Jake (Chris Brown, Stomp the Yard, and Michael Ealy, Seven Pounds), intimidating and well-spoken Gordon (Idris Elba, The Losers), suave and professional John (Paul Walker, Fast & Furious), and tech-savvy A.J. (Hayden Christensen, Jumper) make up the gang of misfits. The only ones who seem to have two brain cells to rub together are Gordon and John. The others seem like they belong in a bad rap movie, with Hayden Christensen crying in the background. I was surprised that Christensen actually didn’t sound like a whiny three-year-old, until about halfway through the movie. Usually it takes about two minutes for his voice to crack.
After the epic bank job, Ghost (Tip “T.I.” Harris, American Gangster), an ex-con and ex-partner of the thieves gets out of jail with a new job for the group he obtained through Russian mob connections in jail. Yeah, I know. The Russians. Obvious though it may be that Ghost is anything but trustworthy, the lure of a hefty prize whets the appetites of the rest of the gang. This last job is what eventually brings about some trouble for the robbers in the form of two detectives hot on their tails. The sad thing is, that the detectives are never developed either. Jack Welles (Matt Dillon, Armored) and his partner Eddie (Jay Hernandez, Quarantine) are cut-and-paste characters. Jack is a deadbeat dad, and Eddie seems like Golden Boy. There’s a side plot with a crooked cop, but it never really ties into the rest of the story. There are actually numerous side plots with all of the crooks as well, but they just seem unnecessary. The only reason I can gather that they exist is because the director needed some filler and he wanted to prove that crooks and cops are normal people, too.
Regardless, after the last job doesn’t go according to plan, things go bad, quickly. The resulting bloodbath and betrayal is expected and uninteresting. The movie’s strong points are the adrenaline rush of the beginning heist and some of the gunfights. There is one interesting gunfight in particular where every gunshot is muted, but the sounds of glass breaking, frenzied yells, and spent bullet shells hitting the floor were as clear as crystal. I believe it has been done before, but it was entertaining nonetheless.
Mediocrity is this movie’s middle name. The characters are cardboard cutouts, the camera angles are nothing special, the soundtrack is equally unimportant, and Ghost is the most annoying character of all, who must have said “G” at least one hundred thousand times (after the third time I wanted to slap him). Though it has a good premise, there are many movies like Takers, as bits and pieces have been taken from other heist movies.
★★★☆☆
