Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: John Luessenhop
Cast: Matt Dillon, Paul Walker, Chris Brown, T.I., Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen, Jay Hernandez, Michael Ealy, Steve Harris, Zoe Saldana, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Johnathon Schaech
RunTime: 1 hr 47 mins
Released By: Columbia TriStar
Rating: TBA
Official Website: http://www.whoarethetakers.com/

Opening Day: 14 October 2010

Synopsis:

TAKERS takes you into the world of a notorious group of criminals (Idris Elba, Paul Walker, T.I., Chris Brown, Hayden Christensen and Michael Ealy) eter Allenwho continue to baffle police by pulling off perfectly executed bank robberies. They are in and out like clockwork, leaving no evidence behind and laying low between heists. But when they attempt to pull off one last job with more money at stake than ever before, the crew may find their plans interrupted by a hardened detective (Matt Dillon) who is hell-bent on solving the case.

Movie Review:

Five successful bank robbers living the high life get embroiled in the biggest heist thrown in by their ex-member. Unable to turn away from a $20 million easy pick up, the plan was followed though but as always, something has to go wrong. Seriously, if it went smoothly, we’ll be watching a boring short film.

There has been mixed reviews of this glossy getup. On one side of the ring, good acting and cast was much applauded. Chris Brown, singer turned actor, fresh back then, infamous for the whole Rihanna case. Having some acting chops in the past did add tho his street cred but not enough to be a believable asset into this film. Hayden Christensen, forever known in our minds as the one who went to the dark side is his usual suave self and did pretty good job. Michael Ealy, well known in TV land, crosses over seamlessly and was well accepted. Idris Elba, our British counterpart was a breath of fresh air adding the only human element that almost made the film good. T.I., also from hip-hop to silver screen transfer has a natural vibe that is a dead giveaway of how the film is going to end. And of cos the two detectives who has hunted them down from beginning to end, Matt Dillon and Jay Hernandez ,did their best to saviour what was left to be pieced together. Their storyline was terribly disjointed and almost made the film two separate entities. If we were to spot cast where it went wrong it all boils down to its storyline.

Here is the low down. Box office hasn’t been too kind to this action fiasco and i would understand why. No doubt, there were several key action sequences that was pretty ‘edge-of-the-seat’ stuff that especially made Chris Brown look like Jackie Chan. The problem that lies with this caper crowd is that, there is nobody to root for. Every one of them is a smug, high class bank robber that has very little character development which garners no emotional investment for the audience. By the end of the film, I didn’t really care who lived or died.

What was more interesting was what was happening behind the camera. Directed by John Luessenhop, a fairly newbie in the Hollywood business, who made his mark on the celluloid when his short film in Sundance took notice and won an award, leading to directing episodes of "America's Most Wanted" and 2000's independent prison drama "Lockdown," which Screen Gems gave a limited theatrical release. Then the early script of “Takers” came upon and went numerous re-writes and recasting till the fateful day when they were ready to film, tragedy struck. John’s son stopped breathing and as a result of medication/seizures/coma, his son suffered permanent brain damage.

Screen Gems President Clint Culpepper, after hearing the news said to him that he need to do this film. He would be willing to put the film on hold till whenever hence the 5 year delay in production. Of cos the trouble didn’t stop there, because of T.I. imprisonment related to illegal weapons meant that publicity had to be halted for eight months before things started to pick up.

Now why didn’t someone do this film instead.

Movie Rating:

(Mediocre heist action film that has its moments but largely left me cold)

Review by Lokman B S