Pages

Saturday, October 5, 2024

Dodging Bullets: Take Cover (2024) Review

Director: Nick McKinless

Notable Cast: Scott Adkins, Alice Eve, Jack Parr, Billy Clements, Mădălina Bellariu Ion, Renars Latkovskis, Nik Coleman, Alba De Torrebruna

 

Take Cover is simple, which I appreciate wholeheartedly. While theatrical action films continue to try to bring flocks of people to the theater with spectacle, the Scott Adkins vehicle continues to run on simple ideas, strong action execution, and just enough thoughtful drama to build a foundation. That's it. That's all. 

 

Take Cover is just that. Less is more. 

 

The concept? Two mercenaries, a sniper (Adkins) and his spotter (Parr), are trapped in a massive hotel room by another sniper and a handful of baddies waiting to crush them if they try to leave. The simplicity breeds creativity, and Take Cover can take advantage of it. Yes, the film does start outside the room, showcasing a job that goes sideways, the chemistry between the two men as partners, and their abilities as fighters, shooters, and escape artists, but really, it's all set up to The Room. Once it gets there, despite a few convenient flaws of logic in the script to keep them there, the film can start boiling tension and working its fun dynamics as an action flick. 

 

Director Nick McKinless, a stuntman prior by trade, knows how to keep the film moving - despite its limited set usage and smaller cast size, and that's the biggest compliment to give Take Cover. It never overstays its welcome, and it uses the room in some fun ways - particularly with its seemingly bulletproof furniture and an elevator begging for usage. This allows the action to flow freely in its narrative, allowing Adkins to do his high-kicking badassery as fans have come to expect, and blends gunplay with fist-to-feet fury in ways that lift the straight-to-VOD film above its peers. 

 


Take Cover has to cut a few corners in painting its characters in more generic ways, particularly its side characters, which tends to be the biggest obstacle it faces. Its female characters, outside of a few fun ideas like one of the masseuses being a palm reader or the language barrier for the other, are fairly stock. Like many Adkins films, he's there to be a PROTECTOR, and he sticks to that character beat with relative steadfastness, despite the film giving him a decently executed 'hitman with a heart' trope backstory. Naturally, Adkins ends up being the best actor in the movie and carries so much of the emotional pathos throughout, even if his character is hardly the most original take. 

 

Truthfully, Parr's secondary lead, Ken, is the biggest hurdle throughout the film. Despite the initial chemistry between the two leads, his brand of vulgar goofball, meant to be in stark contrast to Adkins' straight-laced do-gooder, grates on the nerves after a while. It's not that those characters don't exist in real life - they most certainly do, and I have friends that definitely exist in that realm - but it's only so many dick jokes that a film can use for comedic relief before it becomes tiresome. Parr gets a couple of fun action beats and executes what he is being asked to do in the role well, but he's more there to compliment Adkins than he is to be a true secondary lead. That explains his lack of poster presence even when Alice Eve gets on there, and she’s mostly a voice in the film (albeit a solid addition to the film.)

 

Still, for fans of low-budget action cinema, you can't go wrong with Take Cover. Despite its limitations in sets, characters, and sometimes logic in its script (just wait to see the actual escape route out of the hotel room at the end), Take Cover dodges a ton of bullets that could have crippled the film from reaching its goals. It’s highly entertaining, moves like lightning, and never loses sight that the action and narrative must serve its concept. It’s the kind of VOD actioner I love watching on a late Friday night.

When’s Nick McKinless making his next Adkins action fest?

 


Written By Matt Malpica Reifschneider

No comments:

Post a Comment