Review: 'Takers' takes away nearly two hours of my life

Heist movies can be made in several ways. You can have a cool heist movie, filled with fun characters played by popular actors (think Ocean's 11). You can have a puzzle of a heist movie, in which the heist itself is a Rube Goldberg device that only becomes clear in the end (think David Mamet's Heist). You can have a strong character heist film in which a central character is well developed, or even tougher to do, in which a large group of characters all get various levels of development and depth (look to Michael Mann in general).

Takers has none of these characteristics. It tries to be a cool movie, what with all the low-lit, moody, hi-def digital photography and young, popular actors, but the digital camera work just looks cheap, and while the actors may be popular in certain circles, most of them show no acting ability whatsoever. Then again, that could be an issue with the lackluster story, which saddles each actor with a one-dimensional character and a boring and unimaginative central heist. So Takers can't even deliver on the cool heist aspect of the genre, or the character development possibilities of the genre. It's all just filler, a reason for women of a certain age range to fill a theater on a Friday night and scream out in ecstasy whenever known woman-beater Chris Brown glances in the direction of the camera.

The story follows a tight knit group of thieves, led by awesome actor Idris Elba (The Losers, Blood and Bone), and populated by not so awesome actors Paul Walker (The Fast & The Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Fast & Furious) and Hayden Christensen (Jumper). Christensen is actually so bland (as well as his character) that he is totally defined by his hat. And on occasion a bow tie. Michael Ealy (2 Fast 2 Furious reunion tour!) gets to do nothing but fret over hottie Zoe Saldana (Avatar, The Losers reunion tour!) and butt heads with rapper turned actor Tip "T.I." Harris (who shows his acting chops by portraying a guy who just got out of prison). And lady face punching Chris Brown rounds out the group, and the story leaves his character with so little to do that he basically serves a plot device to move objects from point A to point B and to close out another character's story arc.

This group is being investigated by the ragtag cop team of Matt Dillon (Herbie Fully Loaded) and Jay Hernandez (Crazy/Beautiful), and Matt Dillon plays the whole thing like a burned out cop. He gives it a whole John McClane in Die Hard 3 kinda feel. Though not as drunk. Maybe more like McClane somewhere between Die Hard 2 and Die Hard 3. Hernandez is really bland, which makes it more puzzling that his character pretty much gets the biggest arc and depth, followed by Dillon's burned out cop struggling with his new role as weekend Dad. And even though they are investigating this heist team, they are always so far behind that they rarely have any direct involvement with the heist portion of the film. If this was a game of cat and mouse, the cat is old, fat and blind and the mice have jet packs. It all ends up tying together very loosely and it's actually pretty astounding that so little could happen in a movie that is nearly two hours.

Truth be told, the movie isn't necessarily bad for the first hour or so. It's merely bland. While the film introduces us to the characters and to the set up, nothing is awful, nor is it memorable. It is just made-for-TV stuff, available for watching on TNT every week. There is a little bit of action, but it is all of the modern shaky-cam variety, the whole implied action thing, and it's boring. Women-beating Chris Brown gets a whole shaky-cam foot chase scene, and the ladies in the audience cheered on his stunt double as he freestyle parkoured his way over taxi cabs and through alley ways. They managed to distill everything popular in modern action and put it into this example of how not to film action competently. And then they unveil the big heist scene, and I did like how the heist didn't go exactly as planned and they had to improvise, but it was still a whole lot of nothing. Not a single scene that compared to the intensity of the armored truck heist in Heat. Or the inventiveness of the Joker's bank heist in The Dark Knight. None of this really kills the movie though. Not totally. It's not until the last thirty minutes that Takers slips into bad movie territory, and it does so in a pretty epic way. Completely undeveloped characters get overwrought goodbyes and deaths, slow motion is abused by the film makers, characters make life-altering decisions that make no logical or rational sense, and the director makes some silly choices that all comes together for a car wreck of a movie. It takes itself way too seriously, and refuses to bring anything new to the table (except for maybe a scene where Matt Dillon brings his young daughter on a stake out, as an example of stellar parenting).

Wasting good actors and mediocre actors alike with a bland story and bad directing, Takers is a waste of everyone's time, unless you are in the certain demographic that seriously cheers and screams every time female forehead demolitions expert Chris Brown appears on screen (interestingly, Brown had the most enthusiastic audience response, followed by T.I., and then to a much lesser extent Paul Walker and Idris Elba). I saw it in a packed theater and when it ended there was some applause and cheering. I don't know what those people showed up for, but they got it and they were happy. I showed up for a good movie and got handed a bag of crap. That's just how it goes.

The Trailer Rundown:

Faster - I've seen this teaser trailer before, it looks cool but it's time for something that shows just a little more. Dwayne Johnson looks like he's ready to kick some ass again, and it's about time. I had a taste of action from the Rock in The Other Guys, now it's time he does it for real.

The Town - as opposed to Takers, this looks like it could be a good heist type of movie. This one is about bank robberies in particular, and while Ben Affleck showed he could be a director of substance with Gone Baby Gone, it looks like he might be throwing in some style as well with this one. I'm looking forward to it.

Resident Evil: Afterlife - I'm so tired of seeing this movie. And after seeing it in 3D, it is obvious how so many shots in the movie meant for 3D will look awful in 2D, which is how most people will see this thing anyway.

Machete - I love this trailer and I'm ready for the movie. Next weekend!

My Soul To Take - Wes Craven woke up one day and said to himself, "I'm gonna make a slasher movie." Decades later, he's still at it. This is is first movie since 2005's Red Eye and hopefully it'll be a lot better. It'll be interesting to see how 71-year old Wes Craven makes a horror movie in the year 2010, and what he thinks will scare audiences today. He's following that up with Scream 4, so apparently he has something left to say with the genre.