Takers Review

JENNINGS - We're takers, gents. It's what we do for a living. We take.

Takers is such a viscous turd of a movie that even the official production notes can't mask its pungent odor. Observe.

Longtime friends Gordon Jennings (Idris Elba), John Rahway (Paul Walker), A.J. (Hayden Christensen), and the Attica brothers, Jake (Michael Ealy) and Jesse (Chris Brown), finance an extravagant lifestyle filled with hot cars, hotter women, and unlimited cash by staging high stakes bank robberies.

Paul Walker, Hayden Christensen, AND Chris Brown? Talk about acting's triple crown.

They avoid being caught by planning to the tiniest detail, leaving no clues, and pulling off one - and only one - job per year. Their latest successful caper, a $2 million heist, attracts the attention of...

Wait, wait, stop. $2 million? That's only $400,000 per man per year. You don't think Jay-Z spends more than half a mill a year? Jay probably spends that on his plane alone. I would hardly call these guys "extravagant."

As the crew celebrates their latest daring robbery in a chic downtown cocktail lounge, Ghost (T.I.), a former comrade-in-arms recently released from prison, drops in with an irresistible proposal... a plan that will net each of them enough money to hang up their ski masks forever: the robbery of an armored car carrying over $12.

Yup. That's what it says. $12. According to IMDb, it's $20 million, so let's go with that. But even $20 million split 6 ways is only $3.3 million per guy. That sh*t's gonna go quick, hardly enough for a lifetime even if properly invested. Which it wont be.

The story of Takers begins with Gabriel Casseus, an actor who had never written a screenplay before... "The idea for the movie came to me complete from beginning to end," he says. "But I didn't know how to write a script."

You still don't.

Casseus tracked down writer Peter Allen in Los Angeles and proposed they collaborate on a screenplay about a high-tech, high-style crew of bank robbers. "He had some very specific ideas," recalls Allen. "Gabe wanted it to be about a multiracial crew of guys who wear sharp suits and commit designer crimes, meaning they never get caught... I said, 'Okay, we can run with this.'"

OCEAN'S ELEVEN + HEAT + INCOMPETENCE = TAKERS

The film was originally set in New York City, but after 9/11, the filmmakers focused their sights on the West Coast... A Far East incarnation was considered as well. "I had a Hong Kong version, with an international cast," says [director] Luessenhop.

Nothing says considered specificity like completely interchangeable locales. I mean, why not Denmark?

In addition to a unique sartorial style, each character expresses his individuality through the car he drives - after all, it is Los Angeles. "There's a scene set outside the Mercury Lounge, and we shot it just like a music video," says producer Will Packer. "All the guys pull up in their various whips, one at a time, and it's this great shot of them set against the skyline of Los Angeles, walking into the club as if they own the world... There was some battling back and forth about who got to drive what. Everybody wanted the coolest car."

Glad to know everyone's priorities were in place. In summation, if you like the following things, Takers is the movie for you:

1. Inked-up Hayden Christensen playing blues piano in a pork-pie hat

2. Chris Brown doing parkour

3. Matt Dillon (yes, he's in it) growling like Batman

4. The rare well-executed action beat

5. Acting so bad it seems like everyone's trying not to act

BUT if you like anything else - literally anything else at all - do not see Takers. It is a wretched experience and it depresses me that so much time, effort, and money is put into projects that don't care a lick about their audience.

Sum...ology: Take it back. Take it all back.