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Takers: A Summer Letdown





I had been patiently waiting to see Takers for a while, having seen an early preview a couple of months ago, and was disappointed, noticing the release date as August 28th.  I finally got to see it this past weekend.  To my utter dismay, it was far from what I expected.

At about 15 minutes in, I had to tell myself not to panic, that it would get better, and that it just started.  I waited for it to get better.  When the credits rolled at the end, I realized, it was over, and that the moment I had waited for never came.  You would think with Michael Ealy, Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen, Paul Walker, Jay Hernandez, Matt Dillon, Chris Brown and T.I. (okay maybe not Chris Brown and T.I. in terms of acting, but you never know, it could happen) that we had a movie.  Not so.  Not so at all.


I read somewhere that if you liked Ocean’s 11, you’ll love Takers.  Did that person see Takers?   I can only imagine that this person only saw the trailer and was as misguided as I was, because if they saw the movie there is no way such a comparison could have been made.  And I can’t just blame the writers for lack of a compelling story, because the acting was bad too.  It was almost as if this was an hour and forty-seven minute amateur film and that these actors had just graduated from the academy.  Idris Elba, for example, who naturally has a British accent, kept switching back and forth between his British accent and the American accent that he typically uses when playing in films.  Did Idris Elba forget what role he was playing? Did the director not notice this? Or did he just figure no one else would notice? Because I did, and I’m sure I was not the only one.



I spent most of the time asking myself three questions:  How long have I been here? What do I have to do later? And, when is this over?  There’s always one sure-fire way to tell if you’re enjoying yourself or not.  If you ever have to ask yourself what time it is, you’re not, especially in a movie.  In a movie you’re supposed to get lost in the story and you’re supposed to be on their time, following the characters every move, going where they go and forgetting that you’re seated in a theater amongst 600 others.  When you watch a good movie and you feel like it might be ending soon, you might find yourself getting sad because you’re soon going to have to say goodbye to these people that you have come to know and go back to your own reality.  It is very hard to do if your mind won’t let you rest because it is so concerned with the time.  And when you become unsure of whether you are watching a comedy because everyone seated around you is laughing, at what I’m sure was not supposed to be funny, or T.I.’s incredibly annoying voice which will make you want to claw your eyeballs out.  At that point, you’ll wish this was a joke and that you could get your money back.


1 comments:

Dr Kirnon said...

Oh noooooooo, I really wanted to see this movie. I guess I'll wait to see it on cable. Thanks for saving me some money.

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