A friend of mine was kind enough to let me borrow "Takers", so I watched it. I didn't really know much about it, but apparently, it's not the sequel to "Taken". Idris Elba of "The Wire" fame is in it, and it was pretty cool to watch him in his English accent. The guy who played the mayor had a small part in it as well. Am I just me, or do these guys from that show always seem to appear with other actors from the cast?
Anyways, I can imagine some teenage kid watching this and really enjoying it. I, however, thought it was pretty corny. It's about a group of criminals who at the beginning look so calm and cool as they carry out a very elaborate plan to rob a bank. They really seem professional, like they've been there before. They even walk away from an explosion nonchalantly. Like as though there's no exploding helicopter just a few feet behind them, they just walk away ever so slowly. Oh, wait, that's slow motion. You know, like that shot in John Carpenter's "Vampires" and a million other movies since.
And then there's a cop and his partner who are tracking down the group. So we follow along with their subplot as the movie goes. I'm not going to spoil the ending for you, but let me just say, there's really no payoff in the end. There's really no point in showing the lives of these guys apart from the fact that it takes up time and distracts you from the main plot.
And then there's the ex-con who convinces the group to go along with his one great big score. It's played by rap star Tip Harris. I don't know. Maybe I'm just me, but I don't think every rap star can be an actor.
One good one I could think of is Mos Def, who apparently is not the founding member of Def Leppard. Not that I ever heard any of his music anyway, but I thought he was pretty good in "16 Blocks", "Be Kind Rewind" and especially "Cadillac Records". And oh yeah, he had a very funny cameo in "I'm Still Here", the plot of which is the vice versa of this topic, an actor trying to be a rap star. But I digress.
During the big score, the very cool criminals get into one minor snag, and everybody loses it. There's cussing and finger pointing and plenty of confusing camera angles and quick edits. And through all this action, Harris' character is describing everything to the rest of his group. I don't know, but for some reason I was wishing the dialogue rhymed.
"Takers" also stars Hayden Christensen, known for playing Anakin Skywalker. His previous movie was called "Jumper". He has another movie called "Vanishing on 7th Street", but I don't think I'm going to watch it because it's in the wrong tense.
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