KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Leftbanker Starts off well without too much BS about family and other stuff we don't care about in a crime thriller, or whatever this was meant to be. It looks real enough, like what a family in this economic situation would look like, something Hollywood never, ever seems to get right. In the big Hollywood version the family would be living like something out of the Brady Bunch.The heist gets ugly and he gets shot in the head. Before you know it he's driving a car and feuding with his wife. Way, way too much "acting" and emotion. Here's my two cents on film making. If something bad happens to someone let's just take it for granted that the loved ones are going to take it bad so there's absolutely no need to show this "anguish" on camera with lots of crap like someone screaming "NNNNOOOOOOOOO!" or whatever.The dude can't distinguish triangles from circles but before you can say "brain trauma" he's driving a car and then becomes a super-sleuth, like with CIA electronic skills.Kind of stupid. And then it devolves into a Chinese Downhill (crap storm) and a foot chase with a couple bodies left in the wake including a cop. The only saving grace is that the criminal is arrested and not shot to hell in the end—something that almost never happens in crime dramas. I defy you to name a crime drama where they arrest the perp in the end.

Robert J. Maxwell John Leguizamo is an earnest security guard in Los Angeles who loves his wife, Rosie Perez, and his two children. He is coerced into taking part in a robbery of an armored car by three husky guys led by Tyrese Gibson, who threatens his family if he doesn't comply. A couple of other guards are caught by surprise and deliberately murdered by the thieves. Gibson shoots Leguizamo in the head and arranges the crime scene in such a way as to make him look guilty.Leguizamo manages to survive. He's comatose for a while but eventually recovers, as much as you can recover from a bullet wound in the frontal lobe. "His personality may be changed," the surgeon warns his wife.Indeed it does change. Frontal lobotomies were discovered by means of accidents. They tended to cut down on the more virulent hallucinations but they also made patients' manners coarser and impaired their ability to plan for the future. That is, these kinds of wounds, whether medically induced or otherwise, kneecap your judgment.Leguizamo is thrown into easy rages over trivial things. He can't satisfy his wife anymore and smashes furniture, driving his family away. He sasses the cops and the cynical FBI agent coolly rendered by Bobby Cannavale. Then he undertakes to find the criminals on his own, skipping out from under surveillance. There are only a few chases and shootings.It's a taut and credible story and the performances are good. Leguizamo doesn't exemplify celluloid magic, and Gibson, as the chief malefactor, isn't given the kind of non-stereotypical license that, say, Delroy Lindo is, in some of Quentin Tarantino's work. But Cannavale is just fine and Rosie Perez does as well here as she's done anywhere else. Her features are more lined, her dimples deeper, and she's not twenty years old anymore but who is? The movie's virtues are almost destroyed by the direction, photography, and editing. They are to the film's integrity what that bullet was to Leguizamo's brain.It's not as bad as the last two "Bourne" movies -- but it's pretty bad. The camera wobbles all over the place. There are instantaneous cuts, some negative shots. I don't have the technical vocabulary to describe the photography but it's high contrast. There were times when I thought the images would lapse into nothing more than blinding light sources and reflections, leaving the remainder of the screen entirely black. A scene in the OR is shot with the lighting mostly coming from the side, so that the gaping wound in which the doc's forceps are probing is a deep, dark void. And this is an operating room! The pallet seems to vary from white and black to gloomy green.Sometimes this sort of thing, done in moderation, works splendidly, as in "Seven." Other cop/crime stories of unimpeachable quality haven't used this faddish stuff at all -- "L. A. Confidential," "To Live and Die in L. A.", not to mention "Chinatown." I mean, really, there is a simple extended close up of a cell phone -- and the camera oscillates from side to side like the head of a snake in a fairy tale.Well, I guess we don't want to bore the fourteen-year-old minds in the audience, who would be snoring if five minutes passed without some kind of action -- if not the characters, then the camera. Still, it's bad enough in mindless action movies but this story deals as much with the drama of Leguizamo and his family as it does with the unfolding of the crime plot.

phillystyle I had the pleasure of seeing this movie at the Philadelphia Film Festival and was very impressed-- which doesn't happen often. The realistic approach the director took came across throughout the film! John Leguizamo, who was honored that night, seemed as genuine in real life as his character was displayed on the screen. His portrayal as a man struggling with himself, his family and a crime he didn't commit were well approached in the acting. The style of filming added realism, suspense and a darkness that helped get the viewer more internalized within the film. I would recommend this movie to my friends and others who enjoy this genre of movies.

knowlegeable John Leguizamo is known as a great character actor, but in THE TAKE he is the perfect lead man. He shows all of his many talents in the film as Felix, the lead, in this gritty Indie movie. Leguizamo grasps the opportunity and gives the best performance of his wonderful career. Additionally, Rosie Perez, as his wife, complements him perfectly. One of the things that elevates this film from the typical heist movie is that the viewer genuinely cares for Felix's family which is being torn apart by his tribulations. You feel the pain, torment, and absolute hell that Felix, his wife and 2 kids are living through as a result of the consequences of the vicious and callous shooting by Adell(Tyrese Gibson). The family just really fits and is real. Director Furman's casting was right on in putting this family together. Adell is one scary guy. The scene with his child on his lap beside a gun says it all.That vision will be embedded in the viewer's mind for quite some time. Furman uses classic 70s verite film making style and you feel like you are really right in the middle of Boyle Heights. The surrounding scenes and people are alive. The little girl crying and the crowd watching in awe as Leguizamo is led away by the police at the end is another unforgettable vision. The grittiness of the film sets the mood for a true Indie movie where the actors put us in a hellish like fantasy for 90 minutes.