By Christian Toto
Not all bank robbers live hand to mouth and look as if they spent their last nickel on cheap booze. The thieves at the heart of “Takers,” directed by John Luessenhop, like slick suits, expensive booze and the freedom to live off the spoils of their work. That contrast gives the new film bite, but a muddled story and flat finale render all those smooth moves meaningless.
The gang in “Takers” is as colorful as they are sartorially sound. Gordon (Idris Elba) is the smooth-talking de facto leader of the group, while brothers Jake and Jesse (Michael Ealy and Chris Brown) form the band’s complicated soul. Paul Walker adds his classic good looks to the party, and little else. And then there’s A.J. (a less comatose than usual Hayden Christensen), a dapper thief who never goes anywhere without his signature hat in place.
When a former thief named Ghost (T.I.) shows up to give them a tip on an armored car loaded with $25 million, they can’t resist. And while the meticulous thieves prefer to spend months planning their heists, the amount of cash is just too much for the team to turn down.
“Takers” leans heavily on the colorful cast, including Matt Dillon and Jay Hernandez as the cops trying to bring the bad guys down. For a while, it works, despite dreadful dialogue and a subplot which adds nothing to the film.
Don’t try holding the story up to the usual logic standards. There’s little here that makes sense, but the flashy style and interesting performances serve as constant distractions.
Director John Luessenhop stages a frantic foot chase between Dillon and Brown late in the film, and a final shoot-up captures the sonic chaos of your standard gunfight in a way we rarely see. But by this point in the film Luessenhop has fallen too hard for these crooks. We’re treated to operatic music beds behind the mayhem and too-cool-for-school moves meant to make us rally for the Takers.
Let’s not forget these guys are hoodlums with blood on their hands, and they don’t merit the hero treatment.
“Takers” approach to thievery is just novel enough to catch our interest, but the story eventually runs out of ways to put a fresh spin on the heist movie clichés.
DIRECTOR: John Luessenhop SCREENWRITERS: Peter Allen, Gabriel Casseus, John Luessenhop, Avery Duff PRODUCERS: Chris Brown, William Packer, T.I., Nicolas Stern CAST: Hayden Christensen, Matt Dillon, Chris Brown, Michael Ealy, Idris Elba, Steve Harris, T.I., Jay Hernandez, Zoe Saldana MPAA RATING: PG-13
Christian Toto is a Denver-based arts reporter, print and radio film critic and movie blogger (www.whatwouldtotowatch.com)
