Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

David, as played by Lou Diamond Phillips in this movie ‘Takedown’, is frantic. A police officer, he searches along with a search party for his missing young daughter and tragically, he finds her. David’s life as he used to know it is now over.

Flash forward five years and we see David again. No longer a police officer, David apparently drowns the sorrow of losing his daughter in sexing college aged girls who I’m thinking would be around the same of his daughter. I’m certain there’s a psychosis playing into that somewhere. This particular bubbly girl, Sam (Jordana Largy), informs us that she knows all about computers and stuff while putting on her clothes. Did Sam tell us this piece of info because she was making idle conversation with this old dude she just shacked up with? I’m thinking not.

David spends his days as a security guard for a trucking company, a subsidiary of the mega huge Strauss Corporation. Before David gets started, his best friend Reg (Aaron Pearl) asks David if he could work his Christmas Eve shift so that Reg could spend some quality time with his wife and kids that he loves so much. Why did Reg tell us this? Come on now, you know why Reg told us this.

So on this particular day, a day like any other day, David observes that one truck didn’t get checked in properly. He checks it out and finds a babbling Serbian girl named Anja (Anja Savcic) looking for her sister who is apparently in this unchecked truck. David checks the truck and he does not like what he sees. Dave is soon greeted by a crazy gun toting foreign speaking dude, David tells Anja to flee, a fist fight ensues and David eventually puts this guy down but is gravely wounded in the process.

Days later David regains consciousness in a hospital, meets a scurvy woman claiming to be his lawyer (Deborah Kara Unger) who tells him to sign a paper that will clear him of criminal wrong doing. WTF? The truck, what was in the truck and the girl Anja were all in his imagination he is told. David does not believe this. David busts out of this joint. David calls his good friend Reg with the wife and kids he loves so much and

Reg tells David that they’ve been told he’s a terrorist. David doesn’t care about any of this because all he wants to do is save the poor Serbian girl, hopefully to make up for the way he didn’t save his daughter.

To help facilitate this David makes the acquaintance of a friendly woman’s shelter operator (Estella Warren) who helps him out the best she can but David has no idea how much trouble he is and how deep this rabbit hole goes. David has a penchant for going to the people that he knows for help, even though he is being pursued by some very nasty people, with these people he goes to for help meeting unfortunate consequences after David goes to them for help. David knows this. David is thus an asshole. I sure hope Anja appreciates the consequences that David has put the unfortunate people in his life through for the sake of her freedom.

Directed by Raul Ingles ‘Takedown’ is an interesting if not a bit of a depressing action crime movie, with the final result falling somewhere above slightly mediocre. It might be a little odd watching Lou Diamond Phillips in a role that’s usually reserved for the likes of Seagal or Van Damme but Phillips is a far better actor than both of those cats and there were parts of this movie that needed an actor as opposed to a muscle bound badass. To that end Phillips character of David did spend a lot of time in this movie getting his ass kicked, but in true action flick fashion he got out of a few tight spots that you wouldn’t expect from a dude who we had recently seen just getting his ass kicked, and sporting a stab wound to the gut.

Also like a true action movie there were parts of this flick that defied any kind of real world logic like the entire concept of this movie that basically centers around high priced lawyers, government trained commandos and shadow operatives all working in conjunction with one of the world’s biggest corporations to depress, drug up and enslave hot young Serbian chicks into forced prostitution. That’s kind of wacky. I’m thinking if I’m a big corporation I wouldn’t have anything to do with that. I’m thinking hot drugged out Serbian chicks charging two hundred dollars a pop, with this two hundred dollars divided up a bunch of ways, just isn’t worth the trouble no matter what speech the scurvy lawyer has to give me.

But my main problem with ‘Takedown’ is the end of the movie and this is a BIG TIME SPOILER. But it turns out that David’s daughter is alive. What’s up with that? By making his daughter alive any sympathy we might’ve had towards David just evaporates. So you’re telling me that this cat is running around risking his life to save hot Serbian chicks when he has miserable, rape surviving daughter living around the corner, literally, that he has refused to see for five years? That’s what you’re telling me? We already knew David was an asshole when he called his good friend with the family he loves so much to meet him in a secluded spot… but now David’s assholery is cemented and we no longer feel for his plight even a little bit.

Anyway, as far as ‘Takedown’ is concerned the action is decent, the story is out there, the narrative is depressing and Lou Diamond Phillips isn’t a bad action hero. Like we said, this all shakes out to slightly above mediocre.