Visitors Review

vostf (2012-05-25 20:10)

Heist without nerve. Pretends to be cool but is dully same old, same old

Hardly a nice B-movie, just a MoW happy to fill a 100min slot, makingyou lose some time with nothing engaging. Bland stock characters, acouple of chases and explosions and, to cap it all, the worst 'goodidea' of the cake, shootouts to the sound of violins. Will the audienceplease be moved?One chase stands out though, its choreography is real good. But it'sstupidly packed with the rest: how can the suspense be efficient if weare cutting back and forth, and supposed to be rooting for the escapistAND both cops?As for actors, the one that really stands out is Idriss Elba. He hashis share of melodrama to deal with, but he does it good, and he hasmore authority to display, although the whole crew is onlywell-organized in the premise of one really cheap script. Matt Dillondoes his gig with that poor material, Paul Walker is as bland andtranslucent as ever with a favorable position in the group to displaysome charisma - ala Clint Eastwood. The rest is not worth mentioning.

Kimberly Gadette (2012-05-25 13:11)

Despite Michael Barrett's highly creative work with his caffeinated camera, these "Takers" steal their scheme outright, referring to it as "an Italian Job." Brazen, yes. Original? Not so much.

capone666 (2012-05-25 01:57)

The Vidiot Reviews...

TakersThe best way for criminals to avoid the curse of the "one last job" isto quit on their second last job.Unfortunately, the retiring robbers in this thriller went ahead withtheir last heist. What's more they allowed their recently paroledcomrade to organize it.After he is released from prison, Ghost (T.I.) wastes no time incontacting his former crew (Idris Elba, Paul Walker, HaydenChristensen, Michael Ealy and Chris Brown) about putting somethingtogether.Although they are skeptical, his former cohorts ultimately decide tojoin Ghost in holding up an armoured truck.Meanwhile, a persistent police officer (Matt Dillon) gets wind of theirplans and tries to abate them.While the story lacks character development and originality, Takersdoes boast some decent shootouts.As for the best way to rob an armoured truck driver: stand outside thebank in a giant sack with a $ on it. (Yellow Light)

(2012-05-24 08:08)

The Takers

This review is from: Takers (DVD) It was an okay movie, good thing i got it cheeper than renting it. I think they could have done better with the plot line. It just seemed to be lacking something. They had good actors in the movie, but it seems like they were handcuffed to make the ovie even better.

Jeffrey M. Anderson (2012-05-23 22:30)

The movie falls to pieces in the midst of well-staged but poorly-shot (and ultimately ridiculous) action sequences.

Joshua Tyler (2012-05-23 09:57)

The logical result of watching Heat over and over and over until your brain burns out, and then wondering what it would look like if the whole thing were remade as a Smirnoff Vodka commercial.

(2012-05-23 01:21)

Well, just o.k.

It did have a lot of action, that is a plus. The actors did a good job with what they had. The movie just seemed like it was a have and have not based movie. Maybe that's what they were going for. "Here is what you can have if you break the law". I don't know, it's just a movie, was a good escape for a Saturday afternoon.

Thomas Leupp (2012-05-22 12:39)

"A bland barrage of bullets, bling, and bad acting."

Armond White (2012-05-22 02:49)

Takers refines a genre that has been hollowed-out by the cold repetitions of such cliché movies as Soderbergh's Oceans franchise...

(2012-05-21 11:59)

Same movie different cast

I saw this movie in the theater and got it again as a rental, and I'm still just not impressed. This plot has been done over and over and over again. The only difference was it had a lot of eye candy in it, including that cute, father cop who had an "incident" by the door. I think "The Losers" was far better and showcased Idris Elba's acting chops much more as a criminal/trying-to-be-good-guy-but-failing. I like to see Paul Walker in ANYTHING, but I wasn't even enthused about him in this film. Chris Brown's dialogue was weird for someone his age. Who says "jazzed" nowadays (or at all)? Michael Ealy was barely seen except being hostile to T.I.'s character, and T.I.'s character was too much like himself. The whole movie was "Blah" to me. If you want to see a good movie with better dialogue, better acting, a better scenario and some bonus laugh-out-loud moments, please see "Losers." Zoe Saldana is in that movie, too, and she's a main character instead of a blink-and-you-missed-her role.

Lokesh Chandrasekaran (2012-05-20 18:12)

Takers finally get caught

As usual Paul Walker and Idris Elba did their part good enough, now asvillain. Chris Brown gave a thrilling entertainment and enjoyed a lot.The bribery of officer hatch is lot obvious to get caught through asurveillance cam. The screenplay was really good and so the direction. Despite John finally forgot to tell the main stories of the film whichfinally lost the appreciation. And the robbery in the first bank wasway too easy and too artificial to rob a bank in such a easy way. Therobbery of the truck thrilled a bit but not touched the notch. And veryshort appearance of zoe missed her, she could've given a job in therobbery may be that would helped to move the film much interesting.Final part to be good enough to be ended for such a action movie. Butdidn't got that far, great failure for expecting a story. action partis good but not the story part.TAKERS forgot to leave the trace..

Cole Smithey (2012-05-20 06:27)

"Takers" should have been scooped out of the gutter and tossed away in a little plastic bag...

Robbie Collin (2012-05-19 16:52)

You could write ten thousand words about the outlandish cack-handedness of Takers, but I'll limit myself to just seven. Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, rubbish.

Thawk567 (2012-05-19 07:26)

Takers, not the best robbery movie, but entertaining.

I knew from the first I heard about this film I was going to likebecause it is my type of film. I also like the cast including certainactors like Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen and Paul Walker. I also didnot expect T.I. to be a great actor. I only think he was good becausethe movie is based on crime, I don't think he will be an Oscar winner.The one person I was really upset to see in this film was Chris Brown,he was terrible in the film and terrible in real life. I tell youthough this movie suits him because of his past with Rhianna, trust mewhen I say Chris Brown is a coward-less ass.Besides the cast the movie was good, not great, not OK, just good. Inoticed at least a handful of mistakes in the film. Some things were norealistic, now I know what your thinking "but it's a movie it is allfiction." That may be true but this film is based on stuff that couldhappen so it is a film that should feel realistic. I'm going to spoilone thing about the film, but it is nothing big. When Zoe Salandana'scharacter dies I thought it was a little to graphic even for a filmlike this.I thought that the way the film was shot and the locations in whichthey were shot were excellent. Another things I like was that theydidn't abuse special effects and kept it simple. I think I enjoyed thefilm even more because of the crowd tonight. The crowd made hilariouspuns when certain things happened through out the film. In all honestlythe film missed some opportunities and made mistakes. I expected allotmore from the film due to the cast, story, and topic of discussion. Itell you the movie reminded me allot of Grand Theft Auto 4 which wasone of my favorite games, but it still wasn't enough for me. I givethis a 5 out of 10 stars.

Legendary_Badass (2012-05-19 08:53)

The 4th time this movie has been made this summer

In Takers, Gordon (Idris Elba) leads a crew of armed robbers consistingof John (Paul Walker), Jake (Michael Ealy), Jesse (Chris Brown), andA.J (Hayden Christensen). Apparently their routine is holdup a bankonce a year and split the $2 million between the five of them. But youcan't live the high life for long on that take, so when recentlyparoled ex-teammate Ghost (played by rapper T.I.) makes an appearancewith a job to knock off an armored car, you can bet the team iswilling. But with rule bending cop Jack Welles (Matt Dillon) inpursuit, will they be able to get away with it?I'm seeing a pattern that I hope finds an end. As with The Expendables,Takers has a gang of men who are too similar. Whereas the former had abunch of instruments of death, the latter's team isn't as easy tocategorize. I can't begin to describe their personas. It appears theycan each fight and handle a gun. At one point it looked like A.J. wasthe wheelman, but that didn't last long as he's next used as thedemolitions expert. Until recently it was always possible to label oneas the prankster, but there has been such a blogosphere backlashagainst comic relief that Hollywood seems afraid to providepersonality. Sure would have been nice to see their interaction witheach other extend beyond posing outside a nightclub and explaining thesituation.Takers is so overridden by a nonabrasive lack of imagination—amentality to not screw up the film which backfires by failing toprovide anything new—that I'm forced to give attention to the onlycreative outlet I could find, and that's cinematography. Many scenesfeature monochromatic lighting, sometimes with a complimentary color inthe background. It's pretty much the only thing saving Takers from astraight-to-video release, as even the star power is suspect. As far asserious movie fans are concerned, the exclusion of Matt Dillon from theposter art is a red flag. We are left to ponder at a bunch of guys whoare mostly infamous for their performances. To their credit, PaulWalker and Hayden Christensen didn't overpower me with a full throttleforce of awkward pauses and tone deafness. Chris Brown on the otherhand, you should stick to crying over Michael Jackson. Now that we are coming to the end of the summer movie season, I'mstarting to gain appreciation for The Losers. In that movie Idris andZoe had better written characters. In that movie the core team membershad distinct roles within the group. In that movie an explosive climaxensued. I gave The Losers what I still feel is a justifiable two starrating, but compared to the lack of surprise, humor, or drama found inTakers I do feel tempted to retroactively adjust. Getting back to thetask at hand I can't fault the blandness of Takers as total failure,but I think we all know that two stars isn't an endorsement.

galahad58-1 (2012-05-19 03:27)

Take It

Takers was a pleasant surprise. I did not have a lot of expectationsfor this film and yet I came away entertained.While Takers will have some of the usual bandit clichés, it has enoughoriginal ideas to offset things and make it interesting. The story iswell paced and well written; the direction is well done; and the acting(while not impressive) holds it's own throughout the entire movie. Theone negative is that you do not have a lot of character developmentsince the movie wanted to give each actor his "time" on screen. Thereis a bit of fluff that is unneeded with a corrupt cop, a drug abusingsister, and a romance. Overall the movie is good.This is one of those films that fly under the radar and are worthseeing. Takers is a nice B movie worth a rental.

stani101 (2012-05-17 20:24)

Great caper, nice yarn indeed! Well done!

Exactly the sort of entertainment I needed tonight! I see a lot ofpeople have some bad reviews about this film, but I can't understandwhy! The acting was good, in my opinion, okay, the drug addict sisterwas a bit far-fetched and the film could have done without her part,but overall, I liked this movie. It is the sort of movie I would go outand watch and I am definitely gonna be seeing this again. I wasdisappointed Zoe Soldana dis not have much of a part in the movie. Ithink T.I. pulled off his part very well and Chris Brown was prettygood with his own part as well. For me, quite a lot worked in thismovie from the cinematography, the director was pretty spot on in hisdirection. I am happy I went to see this.

lovecoredesigns (2012-05-17 09:36)

Great acting and good action.

Although the film has many similarities as the film "Armoured", whoMatt Dillon also starred in, this film was much better. The film"Takers" has more of a plot than just simply trying to do a robbery ofarmoured vehicles, which "Armoured" was all about.This film has much more going for it, more action and simply one with abetter story. I wasn't too keen on a couple of the black guys who weretrying to act "all big" and hard, it didn't fool me at all and thoughttheir characters were rather annoying to watch, but other than that thefilm was great. The ending however was pretty bad. I expected a littlemore.

Brian Lowry (2012-05-16 14:53)

A respectable but watered-down heist movie.

Andrea Chase (2012-05-16 12:37)

There is no question that the gentlemen bandits look fabulous strolling away in slo-mo from an explosion at the start of the flick. They are the epitome of cool and control, but that, in a nutshell, is all the film offers