film reel image

film reel image

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Take Back 2021 * * Stars

TAKEN IN

"Don't you remember me?" Ah when someone says that, it's never really a welcoming sign.

Anyway 2021's Take Back is my latest write-up. By definition, the words take back refer to reclaiming possession of something. In the film Take Back, a married couple is trying to reclaim possession of their daughter who is being kidnapped by sex traffickers. Take Back is a shade watchable but it doesn't equal the intensity of the similar Traffik from three years ago. That flick involving the forced labor of women was pretty darn upsetting.

Movie comparisons aside, Take Back is an action/thriller that has a little bit of both. It's a somewhat dangerous pic in which no one really feels safe throughout. There's plenty of hand-to-hand combat, a few remorseless killings, a couple of shootouts, and one proposed ego trip by Mr. Russell Jones (he acts as co-producer, extra, production designer, and art director).

Yeah Take Back moves at decent clip and yeah, the acting is sort of amicable. But as Roger Murtaugh once said in an 80s action relic, the overall outline here is uh, "pretty thin".

Take Back has a lot of brooding characters (with Mickey Rourke acting like well, Mickey Rourke) and everyone pretty much appears mean-spirited and nasty. But the filmmakers obviously didn't do enough research with the concept of captivity in cinema. The script by rookie Zach Zerries is pretty vague as it presents some holes in the so-called trafficking mythos. I mean not that I condone torment but those scenes are so quickly cut you don't know exactly what's going on.

Bottom line: I don't want a "take back" so I'm going with a mixed review. Check out 2018's Traffik (mentioned earlier) if you haven't already. It just goes deeper down the rabbit hole of coercing and abduction. Furthermore, it does so without the inching folly.

Written by Jesse Burleson

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