Takers

Brad Armstrong continues his career as Wicked Pictures' ace director, but "Takers" is another example of his creative juices having dried up of late. Basically in that old "Coma" of Michael Crichton genre about folks' organs being stolen for profit, it has some of the most leaden direction I've seen in a month of Sundays, whether watching mainstream cinema or Adult.

Opening scene is all-sex, with an old & over-the-hill looking Brad humping lead and contract star Asa Akira. After 20 minutes of this sex filler, including obligatory anal sex of Asa, the story finally starts: she's slipped Brad a Mickey and he wakes up with a bandage on his belly less one kidney.

Once known for his stylishness, Armstrong here delivers 3 hours of sludge, static scenes whether they be folks talking us through boring exposition or folks humping each other. Despite being nominally in the thriller genre there is no action, no violence, and rather bored performances. The sex is tame and uninvolving, and Asa's supporting cast of femmes way less than stellar.

To wit, two other stooges working for evil (but dull) Derrick Pierce in the organ-stealing racket are played by Kleio Valentien, all tattoos and no sex appeal, plus Ana Foxxx, certainly the most successful Black starlet in the Adult business lately but hardly compelling here. They have a lesbian threesome with Asa that is so poorly set up in the uncredited script (boss Derrick instructs the trio to "bond") that I thought Brad was pulling my leg. Sarah Vandella is along for the ride as a prostitute in a threesome with Kleio and another mark played by Marcus London.

Show was released by Wicked in one of its phony 2-DVD packages, designed to charge extra for the privilege (in the manner set forth so profitably by Digital Playground/Adam & Eve's "Pirates" a decade before. Second DVD continues Brad's pretentious nonsense of preserving for posterity a Table Read, wherein he and several cast members recite the dialog, including that of missing talent, merely demonstrating how uninteresting that dialog is. Padded with NonSex footage from the movie, this Bonus runs 86 interminable minutes and is of no value whatsoever.