Take Down

It's good. Remebered watching this alone in the cinema sad it was not received well

A group of rich, spoiled, rebellious and arrogante pricks youths are sent to a school, boot camp on an isolated island in Scotland as their last training opportunity to be someone in life.

They become targets of kidnappers who demand the largest ransom ever from their parents. They will have to mature and together and cohesive fight for their survival.

Reasonable action movie, with a simple but well-engineered plot, good scenography with very well-crafted action scenes. It only sins for the excessive simplicity and predictability of the plot with one-dimensional characters.

Still not bad, slightly above action movies of this genre.

Despite the contrived situation and "Survivors" production style, the story, the acting and the scenery keep things moving along ... until the last section when it all falls in a big heap, as if they ran out of time, money or inspiration.

Little and not-so-little inconsistencies in the plot accumulate steadily, gradually becoming more noticeable. I'm happy to suspend reality for a creative tale, well told, so long as whatever takes place is reasonably credible within the context of the story. Take things too far, though, and those inconsistencies become distracting. Reality reasserts itself and the moment is lost.

FWIW I suggest you stop watching when the FBI becomes involved and imagine your own conclusion.

Although, I enjoyed Take Down for what it presents itself, without having too much expectation, I do believe that when you invest a budget of over 11 million USD in a movie, it needs to have a smooth script and storyline first, then you have the means to put the acting on top of that.

The matter and fact are not new to me and failure to do so, I saw in countless movies and series, leading to minor to big disasters in respect to the budget invested and the efforts put in.

As some reviewers correctly hinted, the movie feels like 2 to 3 movie parts put together.

First, you have the young actors and their issues - acceptable development for some, but no background and their overall stories feel disjointed. Aside from some, the others didn't feel spoiled (a mistake). Also, the drama factor between all of them was low. Should have shown that in more problematic ways. No depth shown.

Second, you have the parents or basically some of them. Again, aside from basically two (not enough), viewers don't get to know about the others. They are shown together, that's it, they say that a specific place has no electricity but then miraculously stuff happen to be there, working and set up. No depth shown in that section too.

Third, You have the hostage takers. Seriously!, their number IMO wasn't enough in the first place, let alone with some (unbelievable) casualties. Basically what happened down there, most of that was because of their low numbers. Their subsequent plans and going after the kids as they did in the movie, wasn't well thought out too leading to how it all ended. Let alone their carelessness.

So, why I rated it the way I did? That's because of its cinematography, scenery, some good acting and entertainment value.

What the writers and producers failed to understand is what you want to do with your movie in the first place, if there is the slightest feel that the story, expenditures and budget do not match, there are potentially big plot holes and the whole picture will probably be seen as weak, disjointed or lacking solid logic throughout, then it's a mistake to even begin with. Not film it and then hope for the best.

Look what happened, the movie was not bad and above average, but because of the mentioned and some other things that more experienced persons will see, it failed miserably at the theaters and almost no one felt like promoting it.

Cutting my tales short, I just would like to recommend this movie to pass a nice time, watch some beautiful scenery and have the story unfold before your eyes, without having too much expectation, while at the same enjoying some good and fierce acting, among others, Phoebe Tonkin's one.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie and I don't usually post up reviews but having checked out its current score on IMDb I feel that this film has been really underrated. I think people expect every film unless it's Disney to have some life affirming moral tale or have to have some deep purpose but if you want to be entertained for an hour and a half, this is really worth a watch. The actors are fairly unknown but that makes the film more interesting for me as they're all very charismatic and watchable. The cinematography, the beautiful Scottish island setting and the soaring music readily take you through the story of these spoilt kids finding themselves at the hands of Ed Westwick's band of gun wielding baddies. It's not not a horror so don't expect to be hiding behind the sofa and don't expect it to change the world but it's an enjoyable film and a lovely surprise find. I'd recommend it to anyone.