MOVIE REVIEWS: TAKERS
August 27, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Takers clearly has aspirations of rising above its B movie labeling, and critics are split over whether it succeeds in doing so. On the one hand, Claudia Puig in USA Today writes, “The dialogue is clichéd and laughable. It’s a film far more concerned with style — architectural, vehicular and wardrobe-related — than substance.” Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times coments that it “would be a good snooze if it weren’t for all the noisy gunfire and explosions.” On the other hand, Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News praises the actors, who include Matt Dillon, Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen, Jay Fernandez, and Paul Walker, for driving “this heist thriller out of the basement, even if it never hits the big score.” Then there’s Amy Biancolli of the San Francisco Chronicle, who takes a position squarely in the middle, writing, “It’s a mindless, hyper-stylized heist movie, but the mindlessness is inoffensive and the stylishness is slammin’.” Actually several critics take that middle position. Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune calls it “frantic, moderately entertaining.” And A.O. Scott sums it up this way in the New York Times: “Takers is kind of cool, but not nearly as cool as it wants to be or thinks it is.”
