Heist

Takers lacks Heat

  • Title: Takers
  • IMDB: link

I love heist flicks and I’m usually willing to cut them an awful lot of slack. On my DVD shelf alongside of Heist, To Catch a Thief, and Sneakers, I own copies of The Newton Boys, How to Beat the High Co$t of Living and After the Sunset. When a new heist flick comes along I’m willing to give it several chances to prove itself. After seeing Takers I might have to reevaluate that position.

It took four writers to put Takers together, and it shows. The film is a mediocre mess of both shots and storylines best left of the cutting room floor. I’m sure the attempt here was to merge the coolness of the Ocean’s Eleven franchise (without Clooney, Pitt, and Cheadle) with the feel of Michael Mann’s Heat (without DeNiro, Pacino, and Kilmer). Not surprising, it’s a disaster in every sense of the word.

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Leverage – The 1st Season

  • Title: Leverage – The First Season
  • tv.com: link

leverage-season-one-dvdGrifter. Hacker. Hitter. Thief. Four thieves agree to work under direction of an honest man helping those who can’t help themselves. As the show’s tagline states “sometimes the bad guys make the best good guys.”

Insurance investigator Nate Ford (Timothy Hutton) and four thieves are brought together by an unscrupulous executive (Saul Rubinek) who planned to use them for his own ends. After turning the tables and completing their mission, the team begin to work together as modern day Robin Hoods by going after those who have been taken advantage of by the system and those in power.

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Leverage – Season One in 2:37

  • Title: Leverage
  • tv.com: link

Season Two of Leverage is set to begin tomorrow night. The show centers around a team of thieves and con artists (Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, Beth Riesgraf, Aldis Hodge) who use their unique talents to help those who have been taken advantage of by the system. If you, like me, missed the first season (seriously, I don’t even remember hearing about this show last year) here’s a quick recap to get you up to speed. The first episode of the second season, “The Beantown Bailout Job,” airs Wednesday night at 9/8c on TNT.

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The Bank Job

  • Title: The Bank Job
  • IMDB: link

“We’re not bank robbers.”
“Maybe that’s why we could get away with it.”

the-bank-job-poster

Terry (Jason Stratham) and his small-time crook pals (Daniel Mays, Michael Jibson, Stephen Campbell Moore, Alki David, James Faulkner) are offered a chance at the biggest score of their lives by one of Terry’s old flames, Martine (Safron Burrows).

Trouble is they only know have the half the story.  Martine is actually working for MI5 (British Intelligence) who desperately need some damaging photographs from a safety deposit box owned by a black militant (Peter De Jersey) who is using them to blackmail the government.

Tim (Richard Lintern) is given the assignment of capturing the damaging material without using any company resources, as the government can not be tied to the operation if all goes wrong.  He blackmails Martine into getting her friends to do the job.

The job is further complicated by a pornographer (David Suchet) whose ledger of police payoffs is also hidden among the treasures the team lifts from the bank.

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A Rare Treasure

  • Title: National Treasure
  • IMDb: link

National Treasure

National Treasure is a treasure hunting movie of the finest caliber.  With great locations, strange clues that must be deciphered intertwined into U.S. history, a race against time to find the treasure, a great cast, and peppered with action sequences but with its soul relying on the characters’ intellect rather than only their brawn, it’s all you can ask for, and a little more.  Disney has had mixed success in its live action movies, but this can be put alongside the best of the bunch.

The movie begins with John Adams Gates (Christopher Plummer) telling his grandson the story of a great treasure of King Solomon passed down through the generations and protected by the Knights Templar and Freemasons who eventually smuggle the treasure to the New World and hide it, leaving a series of clues by which it might later be uncovered.  Through mischance the Gates family has the only known clue to the treasure which he now passes on to his grandson.

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