Takers Has To Answer To The Great Maker

I suppose if you want to see the definitive gritty heist move you need look no further than Michael Mann's Heat. But that hasn't stopped film makers from trying to top that movie's success. Ben Affleck gave it a pretty good shot this year with his Boston set heist drama The Town which got a critical praising and bofo box office. Affleck learnt that to make the story work you had to make it believable and get the audience invested in the characters...no matter what side of the law they're on.

Alas this didn't even occur to the makers of Takers resulting in one of the very worst thrillers of the year. Takers is the R&B entry into the heist/crime genre. It features great looking women as eye candy only (poor Zoe Saldana), men who posture like they're both tough and good looking (but are neither), greedy, unlikable characters congratulating themselves on their greed born out of other peoples misfortune and a level of shallowness reserved for the most airheaded in society. That's R&B the music, and that's Takers the movie. Shallow, obnoxious; flashy, arrogant and completely unlikable. The cast are charisma free non-entities comprising of ex-rappers come wannabe actors (T.I. / Chris Brown) and failed action stars (Paul Walker / Hayden Christensen). It's only Idris Elba and Matt Dillion that walk away with their acting chops intact, but even they're hamstrung by a pathetic script cobbled from cancelled cop TV shows.

On the 'street' I imagine this is the dictionary definition of a 'dope', 'gangsta' movie. To the rest of us it's just irritating shit.