Any 'Takers' For A Routine Heist Flick?

by Brett Parker

Takers is a routine heist flick that borrows so heavily from past films that you half-expect it to site its sources out loud, something that one character, in fact, ends up doing. The film strives for both the glamorous flashiness of Ocean’s Eleven and the gritty realism of Heat, yet these two sensibilities weigh down on each other and prevent the film from fleshing out a distinct significance all its own. It’s a heist flick as lightweight as can be, yet if your willing to meet its ladmag swagger and noir-tinged pretensions halfway, you might just be able to enjoy yourself.

The film begins by introducing us to a team of highly-skilled and super-stylish thieves who conduct their crimes in the Los Angeles area. There’s the mastermind Gordon (Idris Elba), point man John (Paul Walker), hardheaded Jake (Michael Ealy), athletic Jesse (Chris Brown), and stone-cold pro A.J. (Hayden Christensen). We first see them robbing a high-rise bank in the downtown L.A. area equipped with machine guns, ski-masks, and a helicopter escape. The job is pulled off with such skill that the no-nonsense detective Jack Welles (Matt Dillon) can’t find the smallest lead to bring the team down. With their hot cars, sexy women, and classy threads, these thieves appear to be living quite the outlaw lifestyle.

That is until the day Ghost (Tip “T.I.” Harris) drops back into their lives. Ghost was a member of the crew until he was shot and jailed during one of their heists. He did five years in jail without ratting out any of his crew members, something he feels deserves payback. His plan: assemble the crew to pull off a highly-dangerous armored car robbery right off the streets of L.A. The crew feels they don’t have the time, or the foresight, to pull off such a tricky heist, yet fearful of Ghost’s betrayal, they decide to go through with it anyways. As motives grow more ambiguous and moves escalate towards danger, Detective Welles works frantically to take down the crew before they pull off yet another extraordinary steal.

Takers shows little trace of originality or dimensions to elevate it from being a routine genre piece. The characters are one-dimensional stock personalities who don’t really have any memorable lines nor contribute any dramatic depths. It shows the players and moves of a crime plot, yet holds no revealing thoughts about the nature of crime itself. While the film tries to emulate the penetrating feel of a Michael Mann crime picture, it forgets that Mann always digs to find the poignancy and suppression within hunter-gatherer stories. Director John Luessenhop keeps things so by-the-numbers that searching for deeper meanings feels irrelevant. If it weren’t for the films pretentious style, perhaps the cast could’ve let loose with some of the ring-a-ding fun of the Ocean’s Eleven pictures. With their Rat Pack activities and dandified confidence, the Takers could’ve displayed the same sense of playfulness and exhilaration as Clooney’s boys if the film’s tone wasn’t so dominantly somber.

Yet deep down, I’m a huge sucker for a heist flick. It’s one of my favorite genres (with Ocean’s Eleven being one of my all-time favorite movies) and I can get so caught up in the hulking fronts, the elegant styles, the confident masculinity, the high-octane heists, and the over-the-top dangers that can be found in these films, especially if its done with a con artist’s smirk. Takers can’t live down the better crime films that have gone before it, but it seems perfectly content with the clichés it revels in. It puts up a front even though we suspect a lack of confidence underneath. The whole enterprise is disposable pulp, but if you can fine tune yourself to all the stylish testosterone and slam-bang trashiness that entails, you might just be able to have the silly good time I had.

Takers has such a shameless need to please that it doesn’t attempt to hide its lifts from earlier films such as Reservoir Dogs, Casino Royale, True Romance, and countless others. Even Ghost fully admits that the film’s climactic heist is a complete rip-off from The Italian Job remake. Yet if you’re willing to forgive the film for its cinematic thievery, a little fun can be had from a few of the action scenes. There’s a silly-cool scene in which the string-bean A.J. pounds mercilessly on gigantic brutes trying to beat him out of money, proving that camera angles and editing can make any skinny guy look tough. Chris Brown lacks a promising future in acting, yet his breathless foot chase through the Los Angeles area holds our attention rather efficiently. My favorite scene shows the Takers showing an amazing display of teamwork as they strategize their way through a frantically deadly hotel room shootout. It’s really the only scene in which gripping danger and the crew’s slickness truly shine.

The film was lucky enough to assemble a varying range of talented pros, yet the script gives them zero room to display any hints of character development. It’s great to see talented character actors Ealy and Elba get time to shine in a Hollywood vehicle, yet their characters have nothing significant to show off. Walker and Christensen have found a nice outlet to show off some cinematic coolness, but they fall victims to diminished screen time. Still, the guys show they can hold it down in a crime piece, displaying smoldering confidence and hulking shells quite nicely. The two meatiest performances come from Dillon, who treads heroically through an ocean of cop role clichés, and Harris, who miscalculates as the sinister Ghost. His character is meant to be a shadowy criminal mastermind, yet Harris’ street thug demeanor feels all wrong for the role. It diminishes the character potential for more authority, complexity, and ambiguity. A more thoughtful actor like Terrance Howard would’ve scored an absolute touchdown in this role.

If you don’t get out much to see many heist films, than Takers will probably work a lot better for you than it will for most. There are countless other films of this genre that are way better and Takers will have a tough time distinguishing itself from the rest. Yet if your in the mood for disposable heist thrills, which entails great suits, tough guy posturing, and outrageous action, Takers just might be able to fill your cinematic sweet tooth for a couple of hours.