Review of Takers (2010) by Shiira — 02 Sep 2010

Check his docket and pray for a romantic comedy, a sci-fier, a western, anything, really, even a porno. That's because Matt Dillon has a weakness for armored car heist scripts. Should the former Flamingo Kid make one more of these routine genre movies, he'll have himself a trilogy.

Just last year, he played a "taker", a guard, in Nimrod Antal's "Armored"; this time, he's blue, a good guy who stops the "Takers", a detective named Jack Welles. Maybe next time he'll play the truck.

Maybe next time Dillon will star in a movie that's worthy of his talent. While "Armored" was by no means a brilliant piece of moviemaking, at least the actual robbery was halfway plausible; far-fetched, perhaps, but plausible enough to stave off laughter from the moviegoer.

Unlike "Takers", where Detective Jack Welles faces criminals who are practically performance artists when it comes to hijacking armored cars. After the bravura bank robbery that opens the film(featuring an escape plan that is flat-out ludicrous), the thieves(featuring Hayden Christensen reimagined as Jason Bourne; a born-again Christensen) up the stakes with an even more daring caper.

In broad daylight, the thieves steal the trucks on a busy street during rush hour, where a whole bunch of hypotheticals come into play which would prevent the job from being successfully pulled off. These armed robbers have a David Blaine-mentality when it comes to armed robbery, an exhibitionist streak, as there are just too many people who are watching them steal the loot.

Although "Armored" had its share of credibility issues(in particular, no GPS system on the truck), "Takers" expects the moviegoer to believe that the police wouldn't be able to ferret out a fake road construction crew during the interim leading up to the implosion, and that there's not a cop around during the shootout between the guards and the thieves.

When Ghost(T.I.) had explained the job to his "boyz", the crew's initial hesitation was due to the expediency of the job, which posed an affront to their professionalism. This would seem downright laughable, since there's nothing professional looking about the set-up.

In a good heist pic, the more painstakingly intricate the preparations are, the better. Needless to say, "Takers" is no "Ocean's Eleven". The group sorely lacks a charismatic ringleader.

They need somebody like, say, Matt Dillon. As the straight and arrow detective, Detective Welles, however, isn't going to garner any votes for "father of the year"; his impromptu take-your-daughter-to-work day could have gone horribly wrong.

When "Takers" introduces the detective's daughter, it doesn't spend the time needed to portray Jack as a caring father like how the filmmaker probably had intended. Since "Takers" wastes time on an extended foot race between Dillon and a perp(Chris Brown, in an impressive feat of.

..running), the filmmaker compresses Jack's personal and professional life in one scene without realizing how it makes the detective look. He looks like a jackass.