Takers is 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. It contains a half-hearted bank robber plot, a lot of over-produced filler-scenes, and one surprisingly creative chase sequence (thrillingly carried almost entirely by Chris Brown) which no matter how fast it runs cannot escape the fact it’s stuck in this movie called Takers. In addition to being a generally terrible, occasionally laughable overall experience, for me it’s also the nail in the coffin of the career of Matt Dillon who, at one point, for some reason, was once regarded as a legitimate acting talent. Now I’d rather be watching his brother Johnny Drama. At least when he calls someone “buddy” for the hundredth time, I sort of believe it.
Takers feels like the tenth movie released this year in which Matt Dillon becomes involved in an armored truck heist. In reality it’s only the second one, but that’s already two Matt Dillon armored truck heist movies too many. At least the heist plot is different this time. Well, different from the plot of Armored. Unfortunately they’ve gone with the all-too familiar “drop the armored trucks into the sewer” gambit. You’ve definitely seen that before.
I suppose this armored truck heist movie’s saving grace is that the armored truck heist doesn’t really matter. Mostly Takers is about the A story in which a group of robbers hang out and suspect each other a lot, even though it’s never really clear why they should. There’s also some hokum involving a crackhead sister who is, almost without question, the most annoying character I’ve ever been forced to endure. Had at some point, someone had the good sense to toss her off the bridge, I’d now be in the unenviable position of giving this movie five stars.
Takers is also about the B story in which Matt Dillon overacts as half of one of the worst written cop duos ever allowed on camera. The A story doesn’t make any mores sense than the B story, but at least it allows Hayden Christensen to wear a cool hat and in some small way moves the plot forward, albeit at a snail’s pace, so that at some point we can all get the hell out of this movie theater. The B story is a waste of time, a dead end road which goes nowhere other than into a series of bad, cop clichés and a deep, dark pit of shame for everyone involved in it. At some point the two storylines collide, but only kind of, and not in a way that really matters. The movie just sort of ends that way, with everyone all shot up and the audience either laughing at how ridiculous the dialogue is or wondering whether the title was actually a reference to the way Takers just took their money.
