I just saw the trailed for the new flick “The Takers” and I can’t lie, it looks pretty dope. Starring T.I., Chris Brown, Idris Elba (“The Wire), Paul Walker (“Fast and Furious”) and a gang of others, “The Takers” is about a notorious group of master bank robbers who unite for one last massive job, only to be hounded by a hardcore detective hellbent on bringing them down. In other words, it’s like a grittier version of Oceans Eleven, but with black people (no offense to Don Cheadle).
The Refined Take:
1. I know the “group of master criminals get together for one last heist” concept isn’t exactly a brand new idea, but like “scrappy underdog team wins the state championship” flicks, if done well they really never get old. Plus, you know what movie I’m not seeing? “Group of master criminals get together and decide, naw, they’re good. They don’t need to do one last heist, they’ll just chill.” In fact, I’d like to retroactively nominate that plot for Dave Chapelle’s former “what if movies happened in real life” series.
2. If you’re like me and you take “The Wire” only slightly more seriously than you take the Bible, you can’t watch Idris Elba (a.k.a. Stringer Bell) use a cellphone in a movie without screaming at him to throw away the burner. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, congratulations, watching Elba act in other movies won’t be nearly as complicated.
3. The biggest hurdle for me in this movie will be believing Chris Brown is a hardened bank robber, that boy’s just a little too pretty. On the other hand T.I. is instantly believable as a criminal mastermind, probably because of all the swagger. And no, I’m not going to make the obvious “I hope this movie doesn’t end with T.I. getting arrested on gun possession charges” joke. I wouldn’t do something like that.
4. On the real, this seems like exactly the kind of movie you take your girl to. She’ll be happy with all the fine men, and you’ll be happy with all the explosions and bad ass robberies. I’m just saying, it sure beats having to watch the “Twilight” sequel.
5. “The Takers” is set to be released on February 26. In the meantime, keep it locked to RefinedHype for more previews of the movie, including a breakdown of the theme song for the flick “The Mountain Movement” by newcomer Sharp Skills.
Read more: Features, Movies, The Takers
d-mac |
yes the concepts been done before, but this movie looks like it will be more fun than Oceans 11 or 12. TI does play the criminal mastermind roll well. |
| Posted on Oct 23, 2009 |
| Phantom |
As a film critic/film major whose taste in movies can often be considered credible, this movie looks as if it's going to be terrible. First off, it is never a good sign when you have more than one music artist in a single film. T.I's acting abilities, while decent in ATL, are far from justifiable when casting. Based solely off the preview, I can see that his performance is forced and stiff. As for Chris Brown, there's not much I can say based off the preview but, considering I find it hard to take the man seriously in real life, it's going to be hard for me to take him seriously in film. Second, nothing in this film looks even remotely original. For instance, the blowing a hole in the street to take down an armored car is a carbon copy of The Italian Job. The heist genre as a whole has been struggling lately for new ideas. "Inside Man" was the last movie to pull it off without coming off as cliche and nothing about this preview implies that "The Takers" will even hold a candle to it. Third, the one talented actor in this movie, Matt Dillon, has been on a bad action-movie streak lately. Between this and "Armored", his career is on on plunge downward from which he may never recover. A real shame considering his role in "Crash" was phenomenal. Anyways, my general consensus on this preview is that it will make a decent amount of money (I'm guessing 9 or 10 million on opening weekend) but will ultimately prove to be a failure critically. Then again, this is solely based on the preview, the director may have something up his sleeve that I'm unaware of. Just maybe. Exhibit B: |
| Posted on Oct 24, 2009 |
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