Takers takes more than it gives. A fast paced ensemble heist movie Takers shows off a cast of impossibly handsome criminals, some of whom produced the film.

After a brilliantly executed robbery followed by a skyscraper escape via helicopter the gang tries to lay low until they flee the country with their millions. Only a former associate just out of the pen contacts them and offers another job with an even bigger payload. Meanwhile a federal agent, a grim Matt Dillon, goes after the gang with only vague clues to their identity.

The plotting shows occasional flare and tinges of originality. Only Takers wants to be more than the sum of its parts so it incorporates 1) the armored car robbery by blowing out the street on top of a subway cavern from the remake of The Italian Job and 2) the end shoot-out from True Romance right down to the slow motion feathers raining from bullet ridden hotel sofa pillows. At least in Takers they call it like they see it: one of the characters evokes the name Italian Job to describe their mid-movie armed assault. If Takers had offered a better sense of continuity to all the gunplay and fight scenes it would have been easier to swallow the more outrageous violence. For instance, the movie posits that Hayden Christensen can kick the ass of three beefy construction workers, one of whom wields a gun. It jives with the realistic tone of other parts of the movie. And the gun battle at the Roosevelt Hotel (a major Hollywood landmark) must have been an editor’s nightmare. There is no sense of who is shooting where or at what, only that by the end all the bad-bad guys are dead while the regular bad guys are ready to roll.

Takers so want to be like Heat, only there’s no fire to sustain the combustion. Idris Elba, Chris Brown, Paul Walker and T.I. also star.

– Michael Bergeron