The Take (2008) Movie Information:

The Take (2008) Directed by: Brad Furman The Take (2008) Written by: Josh Pate, Jonas Pate The Take (2008) Cast: John Leguizamo, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Perez, Bobby Cannavale, Meagan Good

The Take (2008) U.S. Distributor: Destination Films The Take (2008) U.K. Distributor: Not available at this time

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The Take (2008) Synopsis:

The story follows hard-working, middle class family man Felix Delgado (Leguizamo) who works for Dunbar Security, an armored transport company, and finds himself in the middle of a carefully orchestrated heist. Upon recovery, in addition to battling mood swings, pain and paranoia, Felix discovers that he's the prime suspect in the robbery, and takes it upon himself to do what the FBI and the police can't seem to handle: finding the real perpetrators and clearing his name.

The Take (2008) Movie Review:

John Leguizamo is a fine character actor, but not even his skills in a draining lead role can save the flaky nature of The Take. The film has been released in limited theatres in the United States last April, but will find a home on DVD later in May, which is where it belongs.

The film follows a dedicated family man Felix De La Pena (Leguizamo), who works as an armored truck driver in East Los Angeles. He has a teenage daughter, a son along with his nurse wife Marina (Rosie Perez), as well as having his mother-in-law living with them in their small home. After a criminal named Adell (Tyrese Gibson) hijacks Felix’s truck during his route, he is shot in the head and left for dead. Incredibly, Felix survives and slowly begins his rehab to getting back on his feet. In steps a determined FBI agent named Perelli (Bobby Cannavale), who thinks there is more to Felix’s story. Struggling with his recovery and angry antics, Felix begins to isolate himself away from his family and focusing all his attention on tracking down the man that attempted to take his life.

Director Brad Furman gives the film a dark tone with his gritty shot selections and handheld choices at times. The violence in the film is sudden and effective, but there is not much depth at all to the characters and the film struggles with its transitions and journey to a climax. The final twenty minutes of the film are boring, when in fact they should be the tensest of entire film. The script by Jonas & Josh Pate shows the grief and frustration of Felix’s condition and mental state, but it ignores to divulge into any other family member or the bad guy Adell. In fact, Adell disappears for the majority of the film, then arises in the third act and just starts havoc just because the story needed desperate energy. The film is also unbalanced as whether it wants to be a heartfelt drama, a revenge film, or a thriller.

As previously mentioned, Leguizamo is good actor and he does shine as Felix in one of his few lead roles. This is his best work since his performance in Summer of Sam. Tyrese Gibson is crude and mean, doing what we have seen from him before, even though this time he is a villain. Rosie Perez delivers the most emotion in the film and at times is the only character that the audience can route for. Bobby Cannavale also arises as the FBI agent in charge of Felix’s case.

Though The Take gives Leguizamo an opportunity to excel his acting chops, the film itself is pretty stale and mislead. This is a movie that will do better on DVD or on cable than at the theater.

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The Take (2008) review written by: Bailey Henderson