Movie review: Takers ***

Our on-staff movie buff Leanne McGrath shares her latest candid movie review. Email feedback to her at [email protected].

Takers  ***

Stars: Matt Dillon, Idris Elba, Zoe Saldana, Chris Brown, T.I., Hayden Christensen
Director: John Luessenhop
Rated: PG-13
Showing: Southside Cinema week of Friday, September 17 - Friday 7:30pm; Saturday and Sunday 4:30pm/7:30pm; Monday to Thursday 7:30pm. For more information about film times, call 297-2821.
Runtime: 107 minutes
Crime/action

A by-the-numbers but well-paced heist movie about a gang of slick and ruthless robbers whose plot to steal $25 million is threatened by an obsessive cop.

The detective is Jack Welles (Matt Dillon, Armored), who is determined to bring down the gang led by the uber-cool Gordon (Idris Elba, The Losers Obsessed) and his buddy John (Paul Walker, Fast And Furious).

Completing the crew is brothers Jesse (Chris Brown) and Jake (Michael Ealy, Seven Pounds) and AJ (Hayden Christensen, Star Wars), a porkpie hat-sporting explosives expert.

The gang must also deal with the reappearance of former cohort Ghost (rapper T.I.), who was jailed for five years after one of their robberies went wrong.

While seemingly friendly, he is secretly furious and wants everything his one-time partners have — including Gordon’s fiancée Rachel (Zoe Saldana, Avatar).

The crew decides to plan one dangerous final hold-up — but this time their plan is riskier than ever.

Director John Luessenhop — a former Wall Street attorney — keeps things frenetic but the movie never lives up to its opening featuring a slick helicopter escape.

There is lots of gangsta posing in their impeccable designer threads and countless shoot-outs but the characters are all one-dimensional — we don’t get anyone’s backstory.

It’s probably not much of a stretch for Chris Brown and T.I. to play men at odds with the law — the former got probation for domestic abuse against Rihanna, while the latter was jailed on weapons charges.

Takers is an entertaining enough B-movie with some good chase and action scenes but it never delivers as much as it promises.

Watch if you liked: Armored.