“Expect to Be Surprised”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

TAKERS is a crime caper with plenty of action, plenty of shoot-outs and chases, and plenty of surprises, the first of which is how good and entertaining it is in spite of not being very original.

It opens with a bank robbery by five professional and very efficient bank robbers who use one of the most innovative and imaginative means of escape ever conceived.

Meanwhile, across town two detectives are making a bust in an apartment, and one of them is Detective Jack Welles, played by Matt Dillon. One of the men he and his partner try to arrest escapes, and this event will play a major role later on in the story.

Then we cut to a man being released from prison. He goes by the name of Ghost, and he is released a year early because of good behavior.

Ghost used to be a member of the team of bank robbers, but he got caught during one of their previous jobs. However, he never revealed who the other members were while incarcerated, and now he feels that they “owe him,” especially his cut of the money from that previous job.

So, Ghost talks to the other five thieves and tells them about his plan to rob an armored car for $30 million.

The problem is that the job has to be accomplished in five days, and the team likes to take at least a year to plan a robbery. But as one of them says, “Bet big, win big. That’s the only way to play.”

Now, while we see them plan the complicated robbery, Jack and his partner are searching through the surveillance tapes of the bank robbery, looking for clues that will help them solve the case. In addition, there are family matters that Jack has to deal with, and so does the leader of the team of robbers.

The day of the robbery comes, and naturally everything doesn’t go as planned, but then the movie fun begins. There are chases right and left and in and out and over and under. And that’s just on foot.

And then just when you think the movie is over, something even more exciting happens to get your adrenalin running all over again, and that’s not even counting the double-crosses.

TAKERS is surprising, and expect to be surprised.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”