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By Brian Lafferty
August 27, 2010 (San Diego)--The movie may be called Takers but “Sharp Dressed Men” would be a more apt title. The Takers in this movie are a group of men who get their kicks robbing banks but there is very little of it. Instead, we see only a group of men dressed in expensive suits strutting around, acting cool, and emitting a subtext that says, “Look how much money we have to afford these coats and ties!” At some point I wished ZZ Top’s hit song, “Sharp Dressed Man” would blare to lighten things up a little.
The story goes like this: the aforementioned gang of bank robbers opens the film by pulling off a heist that is not the least bit daring. Meanwhile, one former member of their gang, Ghost (Tip “T.I.” harris), is released after serving a five year prison term. He masterminds a plot to steal twenty million dollars with the help of the Russian Mob.
But, like many heist films, they don’t count on a Detective (Matt Dillon) and his partner (Jay Hernandez) and their own conflicts with each other ruining their plans. In the end, the film turns into a stylized and glorified retread of Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing.
The supporting cast (those who are not the robbers or the two detectives) function solely as plot devices. The leader of the robbers has a sister who is in rehab but falling off the wagon. Then there’s the man from Internal Affairs who is on Matt Dillon’s back throughout the picture. Zoe Saldana has a very, very small role as the girlfriend of one of the robbers but she is given nothing to do except for one thing I will not reveal except to say it’s cheap. There are already enough complications between the crew and the two partners. Why did the writers feel more stock characters, who exist only to make the character’s lives more difficult, were needed?
The bank robberies are edited with such unnecessary haste and the handheld camera constantly darts in all directions with such haphazardness that any tension, suspense, and awe is undercut to the point of nonexistence. The on-foot pursuit, which could have potentially been breathtaking if shot competently, literally becomes a blur, with the camera constantly shaking and swishing.
The movie tries to be serious but there were times when the audience was laughing. You know your film is in trouble when, during the revelation on the videotape implicating an important character, the audience giggles at the sight of the cop accepting a bribe and smashing his own face with a door. In another, two of the bank robbers, cornered by the police, decide to go out in a blaze of glory, in which the shot is almost bleached out. The barely visible characters then get pumped full of lead. One guy sitting a few rows behind me “booed” and the rest of the audience (myself included) laughed. That was more interesting than anything on the screen.
If you want to see a better movie involving bank heists, then you’re in luck. Also opening today is the French film Mesrine: Killer Instinct. Playing at the Landmark Hillcrest, it is the first of a two part film that also features a notorious bank robber. That film and the second part, Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1, is more fascinating, bold, believable, and filled with more interesting characters than anything in Takers.
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