Bullets are sprayed around with abandon but it’s the plot that's riddled with holes when Idris Elba’s maverick CIA agent teams up with an expat American pickpocket (Richard Madden, Game of Thrones’ Robb Stark) to save the day in Paris-set action thriller The Take (previously titled Bastille Day but renamed after this year’s 14th July atrocities).
Brit James Watkins (The Woman in Black, Eden Lake) directs with gusto and gives us a dizzying rooftop chase early in the story when Madden’s shifty thief frantically tries to evade Elba’s relentless pursuer after getting framed for a terrorist outrage in the French capital.
But it feels very contrived when the duo subsequently join forces with each other and with Charlotte Le Bon’s conscience-stricken left-wing activist. And when the identities and motives of the real culprits emerge, this wannabe Bourne movie loses its grip. Elba and Madden’s American accents are a tad shaky too.
Certificate 15. Runtime 91 mins. Director James Watkins
The Take is available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Download from StudioCanal.
Extras include:
Cast & Crew interviews with Idris Elba, Richard Madden and director James Watkins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnWzc1MW_9M
