The Take

Running time: 96 mins

Featuring John Leguizamo (Moulin Rouge, Romeo + Juliet), Rosie Perez (Do the Right Thing, Perdita Durango), Bobby Cannavale (Fast Food Nation) and Tyrese Gibson (Baby Boy), The Take is an acting tour-de-force, when a man?s life is turned upside down after he miraculously survives shot in the head during an armored car heist and must adjust to life with a permanent disorder.

Living in gang-infested Boyle Heights in East LA, loving family-man Felix Delgado (Leguizamo) does the best he can to provide for his wife, Marina (Perez), and two kids.
One morning while driving his route, his life is tragically altered when men hijack his truck and force him to participate in a heist of the day?s cash. After murdering his co-workers in cold blood, the thieves shoot Felix in the head and leave him for dead with the incriminating gun placed in his hand.

Felix miraculously survives the close-range blast and, after a struggle on the operating table, regains consciousness with minimal but permanent damage to his brain?s right frontal lobe. His children grapple with the personality change and mental disorder of their father, who is often overcome with paranoid emotions as he remembers the incident.

The investigation of the crime and Felix?s possible implication in it strains his marriage, and Marina leaves with the kids after experiencing his erratic and violent mood swings. Felix pieces together the elements of the crime and descends into the underbelly of East L.A. to exact revenge on the man he suspects took his life away.

Shot on location in Boyle Heights, which often found the cast and crew in real-life peril from gang-bangers, The Take is a modern noir set against the colorful clash of street life and Mexican-American culture. Director Brad Furman and writers Josh and Jonas Pate pull an art-house twist on the heist film, pushing aside the usual heroic cops and villainous robbers to focus on the emotional and physical devastation of the crime victims. The family unit is the first casualty, and Leguizamo and Perez bring an intense reality to the Delgados? struggle with the heavy psychological burden of Felix?s injury.

It is a powerful and affecting human story that will leave you breathless.