Takers

Encoring their appearance in last spring's Losers, Idris Elba and Zoe Saldana both show up in Takers. Do they fare better in Takers than Losers, asks Kimberly Gadette ... or vice worse-a?

There's some grand larceny going on with Takers. While any cops-and-robbers film has to follow in a few of the genre's crooked footsteps, it's another crime altogether when the plot isn't only borrowed, but brazenly stolen in the light of day. Witness T.I. Harris' Ghost describing the film's central heist by stating, "We're going to go 'Italian Job.'" As in the 1969 and 2003 The Italian Job? Freeze, fella, we caught you red-handed.

Takers? Oh, you bet.

But they look good, this quintet of smart sartorial splendors who drive upscale vehicles and live in Los Angeles penthouses. They've yet to be caught; even with their latest $2 million bank robbery, they're examining every last dollar, burning any and all marked bills. All is well until Ghost shows up, the onetime sixth member of the gang, just sprung from prison. As the only member of the crew arrested for an earlier job in 2004, sporting a slight chip on his shoulder, Ghost has got a new heist in mind. But, he tells them, they've only got five days to prepare. Is the big payday worth the big risk?

Cut to the workaholic true-blue cop Jack (Matt Dillon) who is obsessed with solving this latest $2 million bank job. Hmm, it seems familiar. Wasn't there something that happened like it oh, say, six years ago? In 2004?

This clunky bit of jerky coincidence isn't the only tic in the four-writer script. The most glaring blunder sets up the idea that this professional group of thieves never, seriously never, takes on any new robbery without waiting at least a year. And yet along comes their old pal Ghost, and even though the heist sounds beyond shaky – something having to do with Russians and an armored truck that's guaranteed to take a certain route five days from now – their avowed time commitment disappears in a puff of gun smoke. Only one fellow, Michael Ealy's Jake, objects in the slightest.

Within minutes of hearing Ghost's idea, plans start up. One of the guys just so happens to have a model toy car and suddenly, he's demonstrating the de facto route. Wow, these guys are too good to be believed ... and that's one of the problems.

Another is the fact that it takes too long for us to get a sense, if ever, of the group in general and its individual members. How did they meet up? How long have they been together? We know that two of them are brothers (Ealy and Chris Brown) and we can point out the leader (Idris Elba's Gordon). But who are the brothers, exactly? Who's the one in the porkpie hat (Hayden Christensen)? And what about the blonde dude (Paul Walker), the one who drives the silver roadster? Fault the writers again for failing to delineate specific personalities.

Surprisingly, director/co-writer John Luessenhop doesn't take advantage of his stronger cast members. Zoe Saldana holds up the scenery. Christensen grins. A lot. While Elba gives us a properly authoritative patriarch, he has few scenes of any weight. As for the other half of the story, Dillon is expected to carry most of the drama, playing off his younger partner (Jay Hernandez' Eddie). But most of their scenes aren't well written, and Dillon comes off best when he's silently grim.

On the other side of the camera, cinematographer Michael Barrett does some highly creative work with his caffeinated camera. He surprises us, zeroing in on the actors' moving body parts (leaping feet, running legs), giving us a sense of the characters' urgency. Rather than shooting Dillon as he runs up the ramp of a parking garage, Barrett gets inventive, filming the retreating figure in a round convex mirror.

As expected, the action makes up for a whole lot of lack. Underscored by an energetic hip-hop soundtrack, we get blazing helicopters, Chris Brown doing a mean parkour around and through downtown office buildings, and an unrelenting storm of punches and bullets. For LA aficionados, the movie heaps the SoCal bling high: the Hollywood sign, Dodger Stadium, the iconic Roosevelt Hotel, infinity pools overlooking the Sunset Strip, etc. The film may have a certain glitz, but like the handful of stereotypic Hollywood starlets cavorting throughout, there's not a whole lot of there there.

You could do worse. But then again, given that these are "takers" ... I hear they're interested in snatching both your money and your time.

Rating on a scale of 5 incidents of You Take-her, You Brought Her: 2

Release date: US: 27 August 2010; UK: 1 October 2010
Directed by: John Luessenhop
Written by: Peter Allen & Gabriel Casseus and John Luessenhop & Avery Duff
Cast: Matt Dillon, Paul Walker, Idris Elba, Jay Hernandez, Michael Ealy, Tip "T.I." Harris, Chris Brown, Hayden Christensen, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Zoe Saldana
Rating: US = PG-13; UK = 12A
Running time: 107 minutes

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