TAKERS

**spoiler alert**

Title: TAKERS
Director:  John Luessenhop
Starring: Chris Brown, T.I, Paul Walker, Hayden Christensen, Idris Alba, Michael Ealy, Matt Dillon, Jay Hernandez (the dude from Hostel)

Story:  A seasoned team of bank robbers, including Gordon Jennings (Idris Elba), John Rahway (Paul Walker), A.J. (Hayden Christensen), and brothers Jake (Michael Ealy) and Jesse Attica (Chris Brown) successfully complete their latest heist and lead a life of luxury while planning their next job. When Ghost (Tip T.I. Harris), a former member of their team, is released from prison he convinces the group to strike an armored car carrying $20 million. As the "takers" carefully plot out their strategy and draw nearer to exacting the grand heist, a reckless police officer (Matt Dillon) inches closer to apprehending the criminals.

My Review:

So, I was on a roll that month when this movie came out. I mean, I was smiling more, grinning more, loving more….then someone suggested we see Takers and I thought, why not? It has Chris Brown in it and I ADORE Idris Alba and Paul Walker…and T.I…so why not? Now, let me preface the whole dealie by saying that I knew this movie wouldn’t be perfect. It wouldn't be the greatest movie of all time…I reserve that slot for Citizen Kane, but I expected a better movie.

It started out great—narration and all. Everything was perfect until close to the end of the movie.  Before I get there I have to say that at the beginning you start to love all the guys because they don’t want to hurt anyone they just want the money, right? The dialogue was snappy, the suits were sexy and life was good. Hell, even TI was doing his damn thang! *grins*

Then it rolled around to the halfway mark and the movie suddenly turned into a mixture of a horrible rendition of a bad soap opera and the Godfather mix and I just about hurled.  I never saw a movie lose it so fast so far in before.  It was like a runaway train, going down hill, without breaks, being driven by a blind man!

 First the cop that did something bad at the beginning of the movie, is NOT the dirty cop, which I have to admit was a pretty good twist but that was about it.  Turns out one of the guys have a weakness, his sister who’s a crack addict played by that woman from Without a Trace…Marianne Jean-Baptiste—which by the way is SO out of script. I mean, she popped up out of nowhere which left me thinking—erm…what?  

Their little planning sessions for their jobs were loud with them all bickering at each other…I mean who plans a robbery in the VIP section of a club? There was no order to anything--the whole movie was one big chaos with no meaning.

And why was Zoe Zaldana in this movie? Her role was so pointless I wanted to reach out and pimp slap her.

Then at one point, the cops were shooting at the ‘good’ guys, the good guy’s were shooting at the cops and the bad guys everyone was shooting at everyone else. By the end I was left scratching my head asking “what in the hell?”

Then the ending is what really made me say this is a horrible movie—this was advertised as a revenge movie but damned if I saw the revenge in it. In the end when the smoke cleared, we’re not certain if TI is dead or just hurt and heading back to jail, two of the robbers were left on the run and life seem to be a bitch for all of them. I mean revenge movies are supposed to end with the person wronged getting his or her revenge…

The script had screw ups that a real cop would never do (like take his kid on a stake out of dangerous robbers suspected of murdering people). It dragged after the mid way point so bad I was sitting there, looking over at my best friend saying “really—seriously?” I was so disappointed….

Anyways, if you’re looking for a revenge movie, go watch something else, this sure as hell isn’t it.

Hugs,

Kato