Takers – Blu-ray Review

The Film:

Everyone dreams of the riches. In a capitalist world, it’s all about the money. First you get the money, then you get the power, as was best said in Scarface, I think, but for every come-up, we get the slew of petty would-be’s that won’t understand the game and end up letting it corrupt them. Interestingly, Takers is a heist film in the Age of the Great Recession, even though it isn’t talked about, the feeling of the film and the actions and subtle bits of dialogue, are products of this new age of the American economy. It was bound to happen, this pop piece of the fallout of our country’s brokenness. It’s all for a silly second-rate heist film, but that doesn’t stop Takers from being the new go-getter on the block, that for a few seconds turns a head or two.

For what’s it is worth, Takers is purely a direct-to-DVD director’s would-be Heat, and for that, there’s plenty of energy in many of the scenes, especially the armored car heist sequence (which is absolutely thrilling) and the Mexican Stand-Off climax between our Takers and the Russians. The Russians are after their money after being double-crossed by Ghost (played by T.I.), as if he Red Scare of Communism is still alive and well in our minds. But with four credited screenwriters, Takers gets boggled down by some unnecessary subplots, cheesy dialogue and some filler.

Besides the simplicity of who the Takers are, their roles, their goals, we get this secondary plot of cops trying to do good in an insane L.A., which leads to nothing but padding out the running time. No offense to Matt Dillion, but we’ve seen this scruffy cop persona before in a heist film of ours. We didn’t need this cop stuff. T.I., Hayden Christensen, and Idris Elba string us along for the film. Plus, it was fun seeing if Chris Brown had fun running women over in a great on-foot chase sequence. Sorry, dude, but we love when real life incidents carry over into movies. Takers might appear to be all flash, and it sort of is. Everyone is trying to get theirs, as we all are, and for that, Takers is a lightweight street hustler that’s all game, but won’t ever be someone. Can’t hate, though.

The Blu-ray:

Audio/Video: Sony offers an impeccable looking HD disc. That’s typical for the studio. The image is sharp, crisp, and overall very beautiful, for a gritty heist film. The DTS track is equally as pleasing; loud, but dialogue is very clear and audible, with sharp surround effects, and deep bass.

Commentary: Director John Luessenhop and Producers Will Packer, Jason Geter, and T.I. give us a far more interesting chat about the film than I was expecting. Despite a few times of silence, it’s a very good listen, if you’re interested.

Executing the Heist: The Making of Takers is an EPK making-of that’s decent, but not as informative as the commentary, and Take Action! is another EPK action sequence how-to. A Music Video from T.I., Trailers, and the typical BD-Live stuff round out the extras.

The Film: Rating:

The Blu-ray: Rating: