The French action-comedy film by Louis Leterrier is out on Netflix. It stars Omar Sy and Laurent Lafitte and here is The Takedown (2022) Review.
The Takedown (2022) Review
Omar Sy and Laurent Lafitte are two cops with very different styles, backgrounds, and careers in the French Netflix movie The Takedown, or Loin du Périph. The unlikely pair are reunited once again for a new investigation that takes them across France where what seemed to be a simple drug deal turns out to be a high scale criminal case wrapped in danger and unexpected comedy.
So this is kind of a buddy cop movie where we have two detectives who were partners at one point and have now gone their separate ways.
This French film was directed by Louis Leterrier, who is the same guy who directed Now You See Me, among some other things, but the reason I bring up Now You See Me is that there are several camera techniques and storytelling elements that feel like they were copied directly from that magical heist movie.
And that’s not to say that the techniques don’t work or that they don’t look good because they do a lot of the time. There are just several scenes where the camera will follow something quickly across the ground to then ramp up vertically and then go into this extreme wide shot where something just spectacular happens. It’s fun and energetic and helps to create momentum in areas where the story might begin to SAG a bit.
For our characters, we get some development and background on them, at least enough to get a rough sense of who they are.
Omar Sy plays Ousmane and he’s seen big success in his police career thanks to being smart and risk-taking. Laurent Lafitte plays François Monge.
And this guy hasn’t been nearly as successful. We’re shown how he has a bit of an ego which his overconfidence can then get him into trouble, but he’s also developed as a bit of adult in certain lights.
I think they’re both quirky and they have their faults, but with Ousmane, there is a quirky characteristic that’s just not sufficiently explained for his character. That aren’t enough to ruin the story but to have some odd behaviors and not understand why it does feel a little bit disjointed.
Now both of the cops end up working a case of a half a dude that’s found in a train. They go to the town where the train originated and begin their investigation to figure out why only half of them was there.
In this town, they came up with a local Detective named Alice, played by Izïa Higelin. Now Alice seems nice and accommodating even when Ousmane and Monge are bumbling idiots.
I think their progression with Alice is pretty obvious. So if you’re looking for a lot of mystery or intrigue, this just doesn’t have it.
What this does have is two guys bumbling their way through an investigation and getting lucky half the time. Sure it is very convenient for the plot, but this is meant to be lighthearted rather than serious, despite the plot encompassing a death.
Now, there’s a lot of action in this that provides a bunch of excitement, or at least momentum. The opening scene is pretty intense with this cage fight, but as engaging as the action was the whole sequence, it’s very frenetic.
The camera is coming in and covering different angles of the action from multiple viewpoints, but it’s transitioning between the shots very quickly.
It’s meant to immediately create the sense of urgency, and that is gained to a degree thanks to just a fast pace. But what also ends up happening is that some of the action gets lost between the cutaways, especially when the action then centers on what’s happening inside the cage match.
Even then, when we’re supposed to be focused on the action between the characters, the attention is diverted all over the place, ultimately just taking away from any danger that a certain character may be facing.
The action sequences, though, are huge and they’re explosive. They start places us in situations where we’ll have like a treacherous car chase along this winding mountain road, maybe a standoff, and then a gunfight with cars and explosions and even places that go boom.
Now all of these are exactly what you’d expect from an action movie, and thankfully this delivers on that part. And even if there are quick cuts in the fights, these sequences provide some good tension and stress and in a fun way.
And, the story as a whole is pretty generic, where there’s one mystery that leads them to another and the reveals aren’t even mysterious or shrouded in doubt.
I mean, we’re shown certain aspects pretty early on, including motivations that just then take away pretty much any guesswork that you’re going to need to figure out what’s coming next.
And aside from our three leads, all the other characters, they’re just kind of so so, and many of them are very transparent, which then makes them uninteresting.
The main antagonist in particular is fairly generic. I don’t think there’s going to be anything shocking with them or their arc, with probably the main feeling you get from them is disappointment at how unimpressive and dynamic that they actually are.
But what saves us from being a dumpster fire is the two leads in their chemistry, albeit it’s strained chemistry. Their antics did cause me to chuckle sometimes, and as much as he grated on me at the beginning, Mong did begin to grow on me. And Ousmane didn’t have that problem as I liked him immediately.
So overall, The Takedown movie is a predictable and generic mystery that thrives with the buddy caught portion and when the story focuses on the action. While I enjoyed Omar Sy and Laurent Lafitte, the characters, on the whole, are thinly developed with some feeling like they were Lazily crafted and written.
The movie is also a bit on the long side at 2 hours in length. This probably feels longer because there are two arcs to the story. So when one ends we become cognizant of the remaining story that’s left to complete.
Now while the film may have a lot of problems, it does provide a decent break to reality thanks mostly to the exciting action sequences.
There’s sex and nudity, a ton of profanity, and a bunch of violence.
I am going to give The Takedown 3.5/5.
So what about you guys. You can rate this movie from the rating box below and comment with your opinion about the movie.
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