TAKERS (John Luessenhop)

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Mini-spoiler: Four of the guys in the poster dies at the end of the movie.

I will be shameless about this: I enjoyed TAKERS. Despite the negative reviews, I still saw it and liked it. Sure it is derivative, but the execution is so right on that the film references are fused well.

You see traces of THE ITALIAN JOB (the use of C-4 explosives to hijack an armored truck), MIAMI VICE (the handheld shot at the third act), ARMORED (the armored van, duh!) and OCEAN'S ELEVEN (Michael Ealy and Chris Brown are brothers in this film) and magically, the creators of TAKERS made a decent heist movie that isn't exactly original, but it is gritty. 

There are some okay plot twists within the movie, and the action is nonstop. Idris Elba's acting needs more convincing power, though but all in all TAKERS is a tense action-thriller. Tip "T.I." Harris is sly and duplicitous, giving one of the best performances of the movie. "My plan, your command," he says.

What I like best about the film is the scene where Matt Dillon's cop character tails Idris Elba's car. Dillon is doing surveillance, and he almost gets popped by Elba and Paul Walker. The twist is- Dillon's young daughter is riding shotgun in the car! Dillon is tailing suspects on his day-off.

Another good scene is when Paul Walker mans that sniper rifle from a high rise building, then goes on foot to attack the armored van guards, then followed by the armored van ramming down a sublevel sewer. Finally,  Walker drives the second armored van down the same sewer and the second armored van flies over the first van.

I was out of breath. 

Okay, the ending scene was kinda awkward. Totally predictable. 

RATING: 4/5 





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