The latest action/shoot-em-up-adventure to hit theaters this Friday is a collaboration by Peter Allen and Gabriel Casseus with some extra added love by John Lussenhop and Avery Duff that is fully loaded with multiracial talent in fast paced form. Takers opens with a well planed hi-tech bank robbery involving complicated characters in which we get to know somewhat personally. There is rough sides and soft sides to each character we become acquainted with. So if you like action, romance and hard ass cops and robbers, Takers is the one to see.

Some of the all star crew includes Chris Brown (This Christmas, Stomp The yard) not beating up any women this time around, and Jay Hernandez, T.I. Harris (rapper turned actor) as Ghost, Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen and Mr. Fast and Furious himself-Paul Walker. The premise is centered on a state of the art armored car robbery involving more elaborate explosives that are so though out that nothing can go wrong. Well, guess what? Enter cops Welles (Matt Dillon) and Hatcher (Hermandez). Welles is a hard ass work-till-I-drop cop that is torn between his daughter and his job. Hot on the heels of the bank robbers, he quickly realizes that a bigger heist is in the works. Well with robbery normally come lots of money and lots of it there is. This all centers around just freshly released from the brig, Ghost, the manipulator. One of the coolest foot chase scenes takes one of the robbers through the streets of Los Angles, bounces off cars with a single bound (look out Superman) jumping off a building as if he were a grasshopper, scales up the Roosevelt Hotel, which was one of many famous landmarks seen in this film, without a scratch and their nice clothes still in tact.

One of the robbers takes from the other ones with the cops taking it and the first ones retaking it. I had a hard time figuring out who was taking from whom. And who were the good guys and who were the robbers. It does keep you guessing right up until the final showdown. There is a lot of shooting and ladies are prepared to see some of your hunks get shot up as if they were at the O.K. Corral. I even saw a little Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in this. I mentioned a famous landmark that was shot for this film. You see a helicopter blown up near Dodger’s Stadium. The automobiles used in filming Takers ranged from fancy sports cars, a Range Rover, to a Motorcycle. As always the cars come out clean with no scratches with the exception of the two trucks that fell from Earth in a big hole with no grace. All in all this isn’t a bad movie as it moved along at a fast pace and still lets you get to know the crew and their families. It’s just a bit hard to keep up with what all that is going on. Takers is a Rainforest films production in association with Grand Hustle (love the Hustle name) Films and is directed by John Lussenhop.

Takers is rated PG 13 and opens in theaters Friday August 27 and runs 107 minutes. Who will Takers take out this weekend? It will be interesting especially with the re-release of Avatar. Maybe they’ll play bumper cars with the other releases opening this weekend. After all with September’s tail grabbing our asses, we are bound to hit the jackpot and not be Taken.

3 out of 5 stars

Hustlin’ Bob Higgins