Watching “Takers” — which is directed by John Luessenhop — must be the only experience that’s worse than being castrated with a soup ladle. Its presence is a clear-cut representation of everything noxious in this generation: Chris Brown, who is best known for slapping Rihanna; T.I., a convicted felon/mediocre rapper; Hayden Christensen, who I believe was personally concocted by Satan in order to destroy the film industry; and of course, Paul Walker and Matt Dillon, poster children for the type of cheap, ineffective actors who choose the same exact roles countless times yet who still manage to destroy their reputation even more with every performance. Oh yea, Jay Hernandez also stars, who nobody seems to care about, even though he starred in films such as “Quarantine,” both films in the “Hostel” series, “Lakeview Terrace” and “Grindhouse.”
The only two performers I could stand were Idris Elba, who I only showed remorse for because he has shown his acting potential in “The Wire,” and Zoe Saldana, who I find attractive and who also plays only a minor role in the film — which just boasts her miniscule performance as complementary eye-candy and not a atrocity. That being said, I found the rest of the “talents” to be absolutely abhorrent.
I, like other audience-members, mainly paid the price of a ticket in order to see Chris Brown hit people – as sick or mean-spirited as that sounds – but it was all a sham. Brown tries incredibly hard in order to channel his inner dramatic presence, but fails.
I guess I should move onto the actual plot of the film: A seasoned team of bank robbers — which includes Gordon Jennings (Idris Elba), John Rahway (Paul Walker), A.J (Hayden Christensen), Jake (Michael Ealy) and Jesse (Chris Brown) — is met with an irresistible offer when Ghost (Tip “T.I.” Harris), an ex-member who was thrown in jail following a botched scheme, offers the job of their lives. The plan is to hit a couple of armored trucks, which are escorting a meaty $20 dollars. However, their plan slowly fails apart when an irresponsible cop slowly corners the seemingly untouchable “Takers.”
The story is just a mish-mash of classic heist films and screenwriters Peter Allen, Gabriel Casseus and, of course, Luessenhop, liberally take key elements of these films – even snatching action sequences, something Luessenhop butchers with his “shaky camera” vision, which is headache inducing and just plain amateurish.
The only part of “Takers” that I actually enjoyed was Ghost’s hilariously bad commentary during the actual heist.
“Takers” is the type of film that I’d prescribe for people suffering from insomnia, side-effects of Viagra and also for the depressed film director as a much-needed confidence booster, but there’s not a lot of films that match the failure that this film seems to embrace.
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Follow Mariusz Zubrowski on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ItsJustMariusz.
I’m oddly fascinated by Christensen’s ridiculous hat in the film. How much,er, face time does it get?
Practically every scene in which Christensen is in. But it’s okay, I was oddly fascinated by the fact that Chris Brown does the happy prospector.
Ticket = sold.