Today’s quick review: Takers. A pair of rough-and-tumble cops (Matt Dillon and Jay Hernandez) investigate a gang of high-class thieves (Idris Elba, Paul Walker, Chris Brown, Michael Ealy, and Hayden Christensen) responsible for a daring bank robbery. The investigation is going nowhere until a series of lucky breaks puts them on the right track. Meanwhile, Ghost (T.I.), a former member of the gang who was recently released on parole, shows up with a plan for another heist. Against their better judgment, the gang races to prepare for one of their biggest scores yet before their window of opportunity closes.
Takers is a heist film with plenty of action, a fairly conventional plot, and a good balance of character development. The gang is unusual in the genre for its unanimity: major decisions are made with easy group votes, and a sense of brotherhood prevails. The arrival of Ghost upsets that harmony: his time in jail could have easily changed his priorities, and it’s not too late for him to rat the rest of them out to the police. Everyone in Takers gets a touch of sympathetic back story. Idris Elba’s character has a junkie sister that he cares for, Matt Dillon’s character is a father who spends too much time on the job, and Chris Brown and Michael Ealy play a pair of brothers who run an upscale nightclub with their share of the loot.
Takers adheres to several crime genre conventions that make it a little too predictable. The setup is solid, the action delivers, and the characters are an unusually professional, successful, and well-adjusted gang of thieves, but Takers does not make anything exceptional out of these elements. The nature of the cops’ investigation ensures that they have no real impact on the plot until late in the story. While the twists along the way are handled well, the ending itself feels arbitrary, the product of luck or writer fiat rather than the decisions of the characters.
Watch Takers if you’re in the mood for a heist film with a good cast and solid execution. Takers innovates in two places: its unusually likable band of thieves and a credible series of coincidences that lead the cops towards the gang. Apart from that, Takers is a conventional if well-executed crime flick let down by a merely passable ending. Skip it if you’re looking for something deep or a crime movie that flouts convention.
6.2 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 7.0 for being an enjoyable if conventional entry into the heist genre.