Saturday, May 7, 2022

The Takedown (Loin du périph) - A Really Standard Buddy Cop Action Comedy Movie

I saw the trailer to this movie on Netflix few weeks ago in the coming soon section and was quite intrigued since it starred Omar Sy who impressed me in Lupin TV series. And I thought it seemed like a fun action comedy film. So let's find out more now.

Brief Story Line

Ousmane Diakhité (Omar Sy - Jurassic World, The Intouchables etc) was the chief of Paris criminal division who was infamous for doing things his own way which bothered his superior. Meanwhile François Monge (Laurent Lafitte - Elle, The Crimson River etc) was a mid level police who was disliked by his own colleagues. When Monge came across a dead man's body and decided to be involved in it, he somehow integrated himself in the investigation and partnered again with Ousmane who he knew years ago in another case.

The investigation led them to a small French town where they were assisted by local police Alice (Izïa Higelin - Samba, Summertime etc). However what seemed to be a simple case turned out to be something a lot more dangerous than they anticipated.

So how would the story conclude? You can find them all in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said above, after watching Omar Sy in Lupin, I was quite excited to see him in this seemingly fun movie. The movie started off with few comedic scenes where his character Ousmane was trying to capture a bad guy in an underground fight club, which would give us an idea of what the film would be like. After the introduction of Monge in a rather absurd scene, I basically could see that the movie would be filled with the kind of comedy that might be not be for everybody.

Once the investigation started and these two met with each other again, I could sense they would have a nice enough dynamic. One thing that I only found out later, this movie was actually a sequel to the 2012 On the Other Side of the Tracks (De l'autre côté du périph) where they met for the first time. No wonder there seemed to be a bit of references to things that happened in the past. Anyway because they have known each other before, there were no scenes showing the awkwardness when two opposite style police were paired as they were already done in the previous movie. So I guess I missed out on this, although their interaction was still ridiculous (the scene while they were sleeping was one of my favorite).

There were also plenty of comedic scenes, but the totally hilarious parts were not that many (one of them was involving Monge acting cool while inspecting scene of the crime with Ousmane and Alice). Btw, the movie had few full frontal nudity scenes which might be fine for some but probably disgusting for other audience. So just be ready for them. The action was the one thing that I pretty enjoyed here, with few quite intense scenes (the car chase sequence in the mountains was pretty cool) and the climax was not bad with nice enough combination of comedy. But it did not have any spectacular actions, which is too bad considering it was directed by Louis Leterrier whose directing credits included some good action films like The Transporter, The Incredible Hulk, Clash of the Titans and few others.

For an action comedy movie, this one is not too bad, but it is certainly not a high quality movie. I could still enjoy some of the jokes but there were times which I thought they were too cheesy. The duration of 119 minutes was also something that I thought a bit too long for an action comedy. There was no mid or post end credit scenes in here. Even though this one is a sequel, it did not have a major story line connected with its predecessor. However, it might be more enjoyable for me if I had seen it first to better appreciate the references (especially on how these two when they first cooperated). So if you are looking for a buddy cop action comedy, this one is pretty standard and Omar Sy with Laurent Lafitte were quite OK. But if you have high expectation because it has Omar Sy, then you might be disappointed.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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