When someone drafts you in for one last job, you should know that it never ends well. After all, there would be no movie if everything goes exactly as planned.

Takers centers around 5 professional bank robbers, brothers Jake (Michael Ealy) and Jesse Attica (Chris Brown), A.J. (Hayden Christensen), John Rahway (Paul Walker) and leader Gordon Cozier (Idris Elba), who have a penchant for stylish robberies and luxurious lifestyles.

However, when Ghost (T.I.), a former team member is released from prison, he convinces the team to do a once-in-a-lifetime job – rob an armored car containing US$25-30 million. One thing they didn’t count on was a reckless detective, Jack Welles (Matt Dillon) and his partner Eddie Hatcher (Jay Hernandez) bent on breaking up the heist and putting them in bars.

Of course, everything goes south during the heist, with Ghost scheming a revenge plot on his teammates for leaving him to be arrested in a heist 5 years ago.


From left: Walker, Elba, Christensen, T.I., Ealy, Brown.

The story of Takers is as dramatic as the behind the scenes story of how it got made. In 2005, director John Luessenhop was about to begin filming Takers when his son “suffered a seizure and stopped breathing”. Already mentally prepared to lose Takers to another director, Luessenhop was taken aback by Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper’s gesture to postpone production until Luessenhop was ready to direct again.

In an age of Hollywood when studios are so ready to discard directors and lead actors at the drop of a hat, it’s a rare to see such loyalty to a director who isn’t a famous name.

Already, there are rumors of an impending prequel, due to the strength of its’ box office pull, having hauled in US$56 million (S$73 million) already on its US$32 million (S$42 million) budget.

In light of this, it’s too bad that Takers doesn’t live up to the promised wait.


Cool guys walk away from explosions.

Most of the characters in Takers are cardboard cutouts, with no real compelling characters. Only Elba’s Cozier and Hernandez’s Hatcher are mildly explored and that makes the fate of those two emotional at the film’s end, particularly Hatcher’s.

The film hardly explores any of the characters’ backstories, only touching on Welle’s neglected daughter, Cozier’s drug-addicted sister, Jake Attica’s impending marriage to Lily (Zoe Saldana), and Hernandez’s sick son for the briefest of moments, making them hard to connect to and empathize with. It reeks of poor writing and directing when the director tries to make you sad for the characters by throwing in supporting characters like that, but not fully exploring it.

For the major antagonist though, T.I. is one of the most irritating actors I’ve ever seen. It might be the poor script, but every word that comes out of his mouth just grates to the bone. In the final heist scene, the man has to comment on every single action of every single person. It spoils the entire scene and his drawling and whiny voice doesn’t help too.


Ghost’s betrayal leads to a firefight.

The heists in Takers are disappointingly short and mundane, lacking the thrill of more ingenious heists in other films like the Oceans’ series or The Italian Job. In a heist film, the bad guys must be tricked, but more importantly, the audience must be in the dark about details of the heist too.

For Takers however, the heists are straightforward and there are no real twists to the plot. It might be realistic, but it also makes for a boring movie.


The gang’s rooftop meeting with Ghost.

There is an excellent parkour escape scene in the middle of the movie that saves the film though, executed by Brown’s Jesse, that lasts as long as both the heist scenes put together, and vastly more entertaining.

The cinematography is excellent, with the Bourne-series-like shaky cam for the action scenes, throughly immersing you into the kinetic shootouts and car chases.

For all its failings, Takers is a watchable, albeit throwaway film.

Takers Trailer

Movie: Takers
Rating: ★★✭✩✩

Opens: 14 October 2010
Duration: 107 minutes
Language: English
Age Rating: PG
Genre: Action, Thriller, Crime

Director: John Luessenhop
Cast: Chris Brown, Michael Ealy, Hayden Christensen, T.I., Matt Dillon