Take Me (2017)No business model is without some peril--but running an online website inviting people to "get kidnapped" as part of a complicated role-playing experience is just asking for trouble. Take Me (2017) is a comedy about a nebbish entrepreneur named Ray Moody (Pat Healy), who offers this service to people looking to spice up their humdrum, everyday lives. But after Ray is commissioned to abduct a pretty consultant named Anna St. Blair (Taylor Schilling), Ray begins to understand just how unprepared he is in his own role as a virtual kidnapper-for-hire.
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Ray is comically ill-suited to take the lead in the power fantasies he offers; he is physically non-threatening, with his "nice guy" face, small stature, and clearly artificial hairpiece. As he describes his business model to a loan officer named Cathy (Brooke Dillman), he flashes back to a scenario involving an obese man named Stuart (Jim O'Heir). After their scheduled eight hour session is up, he is ebullient at receiving a compliment from Stuart about the effectiveness of his routine. Ray began his half-baked scheme back in Atlantic City; but following an unsurprising lawsuit, Ray moved back home to Glendale, California, and resurrected his work as a contractor offering dubious "fulfillment packages". Despite his sketchy approach to capitalism, Ray isn't really a bad guy--and this is one of the biggest hurdles in his line of "work". When Ray receives a call from a woman identifying herself as Anna St. Blair, she asks him to kidnap her for a weekend, and includes the contingency that he "slaps" her. Ray claims that he "is not allowed" to abuse his clients, and "Anna" hangs up on him. Then Ray circumvents his own guidelines--clearly designed to protect himself from another lawsuit--after the promise of five thousand dollars which he desperately needs. Worse still, Ray has no physical contact with Anna prior to the arranged abduction--the contract he has "Anna" sign is faxed back to him--and goes into the deal without any kind of legal waiver.
Ray scouts Anna with his usual degree of amateur spy movie panache--in an obvious leather jacket, leather racing gloves, and aviator sunglasses; she even calls him before their appointment to chide him on his visibility. When Ray shows up to abduct her, she seems genuinely surprised and scared at the prospect of being kidnapped. When the opportunities present themselves, she violently tries to escape his clutches and call for help, exceeding the parameters Ray established in his mind of how their session would go down--despite the fact that her behavior is normal for a woman suddenly kidnapped by a strange-looking man. Contrary to Ray's protestations, he is not very good at his job--something even Anna throws back in his face, accusing him of taking on this profession so that he can feel empowered. Though he acts like a professional killer and mobster when he kidnaps Anna, he visibly softens and plays the "good cop" card after she unleashes a sob story on him. She calls his bluff, revealing just how unprepared he was for her being quicker on her feet than he is. Ray suffers from diminished self-esteem and feelings of aimlessness, his sister, Natalie (Alycia Delmore), takes an acidic tone with him at her children's birthday party, because he only attended to mooch more money off of his brother-in-law, Tom (Mark Kelly). Ray is treated like a pariah by his family, is regarded as suspicious and a potential liability at the bank, and as crazy by Anna. Pat Healy (who also directs Take me) thus has the challenging task of portraying this man as the unlikeliest of purveyors of thrills that exists on the very edge of legality.
Take Me exploits whether Anna is really a kidnapping victim, or just gives a convincing performance of one; Ray comments to himself in the mirror that she is a real "pro". Anna seems to goad Ray at times, criticizing his masculinity and browbeating him, despite being tied to a chair--as if trying to get him to slap her in the way the sultry voice who set up this arrangement wanted him to when it was first offered to Ray. The real turning point comes after Ray hears about Anna's abduction on the radio the next morning, followed by the police showing up at his doorstep moments later. Ray becomes spooked and breaks the fantasy with Anna, trying to escape the potentially felonious web he's spun for himself. Anna acts shocked at his business of abducting people on request, and threatens to go to the police, which only scares Ray even more, and he abducts her for real. The interplay between Ray and Anna is the high point of Take Me, reinforced by witty dialogue that is only a couple of steps removed from a romantic comedy. When Ray takes Anna to his cottage in the woods to evade the police, they argue in the car like an old married couple. When Ray lets his guard down, Anna almost always capitalizes on it by striking or hitting Ray in almost slapstick fashion--it makes you wonder why Ray keeps doing it. Ray isn't a dumb person, even if he deliberately (and repeatedly) places himself in complicated situations. His kidnapping job exists as a self-appeasing power fantasy (as it is with his clients) and a need to punish himself for the mistakes in his past. If it's true that his clients can "find themselves" through his services, why couldn't the same be said for Ray?
Recommended for: Fans of a comedy about an unlikely kidnapper who makes a terrible mistake of abducting a woman who is more than capable of upending his feeble attempts to tie her down. Take Me is best suited for an audience that likes an ironic, black comedy, and one that avoids some obvious tropes in its lean hour and a half running time.
Ray scouts Anna with his usual degree of amateur spy movie panache--in an obvious leather jacket, leather racing gloves, and aviator sunglasses; she even calls him before their appointment to chide him on his visibility. When Ray shows up to abduct her, she seems genuinely surprised and scared at the prospect of being kidnapped. When the opportunities present themselves, she violently tries to escape his clutches and call for help, exceeding the parameters Ray established in his mind of how their session would go down--despite the fact that her behavior is normal for a woman suddenly kidnapped by a strange-looking man. Contrary to Ray's protestations, he is not very good at his job--something even Anna throws back in his face, accusing him of taking on this profession so that he can feel empowered. Though he acts like a professional killer and mobster when he kidnaps Anna, he visibly softens and plays the "good cop" card after she unleashes a sob story on him. She calls his bluff, revealing just how unprepared he was for her being quicker on her feet than he is. Ray suffers from diminished self-esteem and feelings of aimlessness, his sister, Natalie (Alycia Delmore), takes an acidic tone with him at her children's birthday party, because he only attended to mooch more money off of his brother-in-law, Tom (Mark Kelly). Ray is treated like a pariah by his family, is regarded as suspicious and a potential liability at the bank, and as crazy by Anna. Pat Healy (who also directs Take me) thus has the challenging task of portraying this man as the unlikeliest of purveyors of thrills that exists on the very edge of legality.
Take Me exploits whether Anna is really a kidnapping victim, or just gives a convincing performance of one; Ray comments to himself in the mirror that she is a real "pro". Anna seems to goad Ray at times, criticizing his masculinity and browbeating him, despite being tied to a chair--as if trying to get him to slap her in the way the sultry voice who set up this arrangement wanted him to when it was first offered to Ray. The real turning point comes after Ray hears about Anna's abduction on the radio the next morning, followed by the police showing up at his doorstep moments later. Ray becomes spooked and breaks the fantasy with Anna, trying to escape the potentially felonious web he's spun for himself. Anna acts shocked at his business of abducting people on request, and threatens to go to the police, which only scares Ray even more, and he abducts her for real. The interplay between Ray and Anna is the high point of Take Me, reinforced by witty dialogue that is only a couple of steps removed from a romantic comedy. When Ray takes Anna to his cottage in the woods to evade the police, they argue in the car like an old married couple. When Ray lets his guard down, Anna almost always capitalizes on it by striking or hitting Ray in almost slapstick fashion--it makes you wonder why Ray keeps doing it. Ray isn't a dumb person, even if he deliberately (and repeatedly) places himself in complicated situations. His kidnapping job exists as a self-appeasing power fantasy (as it is with his clients) and a need to punish himself for the mistakes in his past. If it's true that his clients can "find themselves" through his services, why couldn't the same be said for Ray?
Recommended for: Fans of a comedy about an unlikely kidnapper who makes a terrible mistake of abducting a woman who is more than capable of upending his feeble attempts to tie her down. Take Me is best suited for an audience that likes an ironic, black comedy, and one that avoids some obvious tropes in its lean hour and a half running time.