BY IMRAN SYED
Daily Arts Writer
Published September 2, 2010
There are countless warning signs about “Takers” that moviegoers would be wise to notice. The movie is being released nearly two years after being filmed; worse, the release comes during the dead zone between summer blockbuster season and Oscar season. Two of its top stars, Chris Brown and T.I., have recently emerged from nasty felony convictions. It has a total of four credited writers — a sure sign of a patchwork, defeated script.
"Takers"
At Quality 16 and Rave
Screen Gems
More like this
And if that’s not bad enough, here’s something that really should scare you: The best performance in the film is by Hayden Christensen — you know, the tall, handsome boulder-with-a-mouth who is the reason we all kind of hate “Star Wars” now.
Viewers with a distinguished taste in crime dramas might still feel compelled to watch the film because of a justified undying loyalty to Idris Elba, who portrayed Stringer Bell in “The Wire” — a character so rich and intriguing that he has rightly been called a literary marvel. Many will always line up to see Elba play a crime lord. Unfortunately, that’s not nearly enough to save “Takers,” a tragically conventional heist flick featuring what is surely the most predictable “twist” to ever survive a Hollywood cutting room.
Elba uses his natural British accent (for reasons that remain unclear) to play Gordon, the mastermind of a crew of sophisticated thieves. The poor man’s “Ocean’s 11,” the crew robs banks, breaks into important places, wears cool suits while walking in slow-mo, etc. But this routine is jarred when Ghost (rapper T.I.), their former cohort, returns from prison with a hot new “business proposal.”
Much is made of this proposal — you’d think they were going to break into Fort Knox when it still had gold in it — but it turns out he just wants them to jack an armored truck. For some reason, Gordon and his crew think this is the sweetest idea ever, and quickly hustle to arrange the heist, even though suspicions remain about Ghost’s intentions and loyalties.
There’s absolutely nothing that anyone can do to salvage a script this predictable, but it seems the actors don’t even try here. Everyone — in a cast that features some mildly intriguing young faces — appears tired, bored and harassed. Ghost is supposed to be the wildcard, the unpredictable one who keeps you engaged. Unfortunately, T.I. brings nothing to the role but a laughably overplayed street swagger, to create a clownish moron where a lethally sly anti-hero appears intended.
Elba (whose character is involved also in a wandering side story about his sister’s drug problems) seems to have been told to just look cool and talk low. For all of his quiet charm and killer poise, he still cannot manage to turn Gordon into anything beyond elegant. And Matt Dillon (“Crash”), who plays the cop tracking Gordon, is another talented actor wasted in the film in a cartoonish, good-but-overworked cop role.
Only Christensen occasionally emerges from the numbing drone of mediocrity to say or do something one might find in a better film. His pimp hat and bow tie are ridiculous, but at least he invigorates that exterior with a hint of character. Unfortunately, his efforts are nothing but a single raindrop in a desert of bland, disinterested failure.
