TAKE COVER - Mark Reviews Movies

Take Cover, Brainstorm Media

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 3, 2024

Once Take Cover arrives at screenwriter Joshua Todd James' simple but clever premise, this action-thriller comes to surprising life. Most of this is set in a confined but exposed location, which might sound like an odd way to describe a locale.

It is important to note, however, because the gimmick is that a sniper team has our protagonists and a pair of innocent bystanders pinned down in that space. The whole setup almost seem counterproductive to action, since none of the main characters should be able to do much moving while in the crosshairs of a rifle sight, but the filmmakers find ways to use that limitation to their advantage.

There's not much to the film, in other words. Nonetheless, it's effective as a suspenseful thriller with bursts of brutal action and a compelling lead performance that probably won't surprise anyone who pays attention to off-the-beaten-path actioners.

The star is Scott Adkins, a regular of direct-to-video action movies, who has developed a small but passionate fan base. Recently, his career has taken off to supporting roles or glorified cameos in more high-profile or, at least, theatrically-released projects. As a trained martial artist, the man is a stunt performer at heart, so when his mercenary Sam Lorde has to combat multiple foes within the cramped penthouse hotel room where he and others are trapped, the fights are believable and punishing.

Nick McKinless, the director and himself a stunt professional making his narrative feature debut, knows how to implement his star's talents and easy charms, as well as how to stage these fights and various tactics Sam and the rest have to use to avoid being shot by the sniper. Is this a low bar by which to judge a movie? It might be in the big picture of cinema as an art form that can communicate the depths of human existence and beyond, but wherever the bar may be, it is exactly the correct one by which to assess this particular film. It sets out to do one thing, and it does that thing quite well. What other analysis is necessary or even desirable?

We first meet Sam and his spotter Ken (Jack Parr), who have worked together as soldiers-for-hire long enough to talk comfortably about baseball and theology in the same conversation, in the middle of their latest mission. They've been hired to kill a notorious arms dealer, and after talking baseball (Ken's not a fan) and religion (Sam's agonistic on the existence of a higher power and an atheist about luck), their target arrives.

From the roof a building across the way, the perfect shot presents itself, but there's a hitch. A woman with the dealer notices a glint from Sam's rifle scope and jumps in front of the bullet. She's killed, and after completing the mission and escaping from the dead man's private security, Sam has an existential crisis. Surely, that woman would not have sacrificed herself for a completely evil man worthy of death, so Sam decides to quit. His boss Tamara (a mostly obscured Alice Eve, literally phoning it in with aplomb) agrees, as long as Sam does one final assignment for her.

That puts Sam and Ken in the penthouse in Hamburg, where they'll stay in luxury the night before their final mission together. Shortly after, Mona (Madalina Bellariu Ion) and Lily (Alba De Toerrebruna), a pair of masseuses or "masseuses," arrive to tend to the men. Shortly after that, the concierge returns with room service and is adamant about opening the curtains to the penthouse's large windows so everyone can take in the view.

That's when the bullets start arriving from a building miles away. The quartet have to hide and figure out how to get out of this room.

There are other complications, of course—plenty of them, in fact, in the persons of assassins in disguise and teams of mercenaries who start pouring in from the elevator, as well as that the sniper team seems to know exactly where Sam and Ken are in the room and what they're going to do. There's at least one major twist here, which won't be mentioned but that does make the situation even more perilous and dire for the four, and with nothing for a while but his wits and quick reflexes and ability to stay behind the cover, Sam has to come up with a plan that will keep his partner and these two innocent women alive.

Most of that plan comes down to a lot of punching, kicking, throwing, and using whatever's in the room to fight off the invading soldiers, while also making certain to dodge the sniper rounds that penetrate the room whenever anyone's visible. Adkins pummels opponents, rolls, and leaps with an impressive degree of skill, and McKinless' staging and camera work always have the logistics of this situation in mind, while making sure that we can take in the physicality of the fights and stunts.

Obviously, there's not much, if anything, more to these characters, except that Adkins is also convincing as an inherently decent man haunted by where his good intentions have led him, and this scenario. Who cares, really? Take Cover doesn't try to be anything else or more than a sturdy thriller, bolstered by its conceit and its sense of practicality in terms of action and how Sam will try to survive. The film stays true to those simple intentions and pulls them off with skill.

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