Raise your hand if you have heard of 2016’s action-thriller The Take?  If your hand is up, congratulations and thank you for playing along, unnecessarily.  If not, then maybe its original title, Bastille Day, might be familiar?  No?  I am also not clear why there was a change, though I can speculate.  Being essentially a heist movie, I am guessing when it was eventually released in North America due to delays, the producers felt audiences over here would not recognize the French holiday on which the climactic scene takes place.  Nobody knows history, or this film, apparently.  There is little reason to know it, other than to see the wonderful shots of Parisian churches, most prominent of which is the basilica of Sacre Cœur, a personal favorite.  You see?  Being Catholic can enhance your viewing experience.

Paris is known for its beautiful places of worship, but The Take gives you none of that in the opening shot as Beatrice (Stéphane Caillard) parades in the nude down a set of steps.  She is meant to be a distraction for American pickpocket Michael Mason (Richard Madden), who lifts peoples’ valuables while they are distracted by the female spectacle.  Yet, when they head down to the Metro and it looks like there are police officers in the area, he ditches her without a second thought.  Meanwhile, in another part of town, Rafi Bertrand (Thierry Godard) is inserting a bomb into a stuffed bear.  He claims to be a part of an anti-fascist movement, along with Zoé Naville (Charlotte Le Bon), and they plan to plant the explosive in the headquarters of the French Nationalist political party.  She is the one called upon to carry out the mission, yet when she sees the cleaning crew that would be in the blast radius, she decides she cannot go through with the act of terrorism.  The third person to introduce among the protagonists is Sean Briar (Idris Elba), an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), though not well liked by many at the agency for his less-than-by-the-book tactics.  He is accepted to operate in Paris by Karen Dacre (Kelly Reilly), a superior who has some shred of patience left for Sean.  This all takes place just as the bomb that Zoé was supposed to plant in an office building instead goes off in the street.  While arguing with Rafi over what to do, she does not notice Michael pick up the bag and move it.  He decides to ditch it, finding nothing valuable, just prior to it exploding.  This is captured on closed circuit television and the CIA has his picture and identity with the kind of speed that only enhanced surveillance states can achieve in obtaining such information.  Sean goes to find Michael, while Karen updates her opposite in French Intelligence, Victor Gamieux (José Garcia), as to the progress made by the Americans.  The French want Michael because they falsely believe him to be the bomber, a notion that is seized upon by Rafi and his followers to begin stoking anti-government sentiment.  With the approaching Bastille Day holiday coming soon, pressure is on to find the person responsible before it again happens.  Sean finds Michael first, but during interrogation it becomes obvious that the petty thief is not the kind of person who would indiscriminately bomb a town.  Still, while Sean takes care of a number of intruders claiming to be looking for Zoé, Rafi among them, Michael sneaks out a back door.  Once more, Sean must find Michael, with Karen getting increasingly worried about her rogue agent’s antics.  Once Sean does reestablish contact with Michael, the criminal protests once more that he is innocent.  Instead, they decide to go after the woman he had stolen from, that being Zoé.  Since we last saw her, she has been trying to find a place to hide, this time taking refuge with other anti-fascist protestors.  It is in one of their meeting places that Michael and Sean find her, and are eventually able to add her to their party.  I am not intentionally being vague here, by the way, just trying to speed along what is pretty standard action fare.  Once Sean has them, he calls Karen for further instructions.  She informs her operative that she will meet with Victor in order to get Michael and Zoé into protective custody with the French.  However, before they part, Victor murders Karen.  Because Victor had been in league with Rafi the entire time, who is also a member of an elite unit of French cops, the French director of intelligence orders Rafi and his men to intercept and kill all three people.  Inevitably, this does not go as the bad guys expect as Sean gets them out of the back of a van.  This occurs on the faux title day, which the anti-fascist crowd has also circled on the calendar for the moment they storm the national bank.  Rafi’s group go into the financial institution while protests rage outside, using the unrest to put into motion their plan to steal a half a billion Euros (this is Europe, remember).  Given all the clues he has seen, Sean realizes that what is happening is a heist, and he decides to put a stop to it.  While he sneaks inside to punch and shoot, Michael and Zoé wait in the van.  Eventually, they feel they must help, too, which involves getting the mob to push their way into the lobby.  It comes down to Rafi holding onto a thumb drive containing the money they stole, but it has been pickpocketed by Michael.  Rafi is shot to death and Michael disappears into the crowd.  With Rafi out of the way, Victor, who knows Michael’s identity, arranges a place to meet to exchange the information for freedom.  Of course, the double cross comes, which turns into a triple cross as Sean and other French authorities are there to arrest Victor.  With this, Michael and Sean walk off into the end credits.

As the final scene in The Take begins to unfold, I could not help but recall how the Catholic Church has been a haven for people on the run for centuries.  To be clear, Catholicism does not advertise itself as a refuge for lawbreakers.  At the same time, the Bible does talk about areas of ancient Israel where people could go to live to be free from punishment.  In more recent centuries, in places like London, the sacredness of Church grounds gave them some leeway with civil authorities, though, again, these privileges were not as abused as many might think.  Truly, aside from some rare exceptions, the Church’s main goal has been prayer.  Also, none of this has much to do with the film’s plot.  In a grander sense, though, I confess to having problems sympathizing with Michael.  Faith would tell you that no matter the circumstances in which you find yourself, crime is not the answer.  This is a point that has been driven home in recent days by my study of The Catechism of the Catholic Church with Father Mike Schmitz’s “Catechism in a Year” podcast.  Specifically, it highlights that doing evil in the pursuit of a good is never acceptable.  The more common way of putting this is that the ends do not justify the means.  This is shown in the film in a brief clip where Michael steals money from a person he passes in the street and then puts it into the cup of a beggar.  This is meant to get the audience behind the character, but it is not good from a Christian point of view.  It should also be kept in mind that it is the actual theft that is the problem, not the mechanics involved.  I point this out because later Michael uses his nimble fingers for a good purpose when he nabs the flash drive off Rafi.  There is a moment when he might have made off with the pilfered millions, which would have ruined the gesture, but it eventually gets into the right hands.

As such, The Take has a happy if predictable ending.  It is nothing you would not expect from such a film aside from, arguably, the opening shot.  Actually, if that whole sequence could be edited or taken out, it might get a more of a recommendation from me.  As it is, it is a mere meh.