TRACERS (2015)

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Daniel Benmayor
Cast: Taylor Lautner, Marie Avgeropoulos, Adam Rayner, Rafi Gavron, Sam Medina, Luciano Acuna Jr.
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language and Violence)
Released By: Shaw 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 26 February 2015

Synopsis: Tracers is an action drama set in the dangerous and nimble world of parkour. Cam (Lautner) is barely scraping by and trying to pay off his debts. He crashes his bike into Nikki (Avgeropoulos), a complicated stranger caught up in a gang of broken street criminals who seduces him into her dangerous world. The parkour takes him to places he has never been before and lands him a lucrative job under the gang’s leader, Miller (Rayner). Ultimately extricating himself from a world unimagined and unanticipated becomes a whole different heart-stopping challenge.

Movie Review:

Tracers revolves around Cam (Taylor Lautner), a bike messenger in New York City. He barely gets by, taking up messenger assignments only to get enough to pay off the debts owed to the loan sharks. During one fateful encounter with Nikki (Marie Avgeropoulos), he unfortunately crashes his bike. That encounter got Cam curious about Nikki, and ushered him into the world of parkour and illegal business. It also sparked the beginning of their dangerous relationship...

The movie had a hopeful beginning, getting quick into action and showcasing the swift, sleek moves of the parkourists. They treat the concrete jungle their playground and stage for parkouring, becoming one with the urban landscape. Unlike many other parkour movies which focus on tough and tedious moves, this movie came across as refreshing. It made a female parkourist the protagonist, but this came with some slight compromise on the action.

Just like any other boy-girl movie, the boy (in this case, and the girl) has to have some bad or tragic background. Case in view, Cam borrowed money from the loan sharks because he was desperately protecting memories left behind by his late parents while Nikki was caught in some bad love with Miller (Adam Rayner) because of a feeling of indebtedness. Honestly, the reviewer has nothing against movies using clichés. In fact, clichés are clichés only because they are good enough to be used repeatedly. However, clichés have to be delivered well through good acting or good development in the plot. Sad to say, both of those qualities are absent from the movie.

In terms of development, Tracers has a rushed storyline and a hasty ending. The characters do not have ample time to be fleshed out, so they do appear dimensionless and hollow.  There is a fine line between what is a simple plot and a simplistic plot. Tracers tend to fit in to the latter. Although marketed as an action drama, the movie did not score well in terms of the drama. It was perhaps not totally groundless as to why Taylor Lautner was nominated many times, and even won a couple of times on the Golden Raspberry Awards (a legitimate award ceremony founded in America which honours the worst in film). The relationship between Nikki and Cam got steamy but their onscreen chemistry was well, unattractive.

If you’re mildly interested in parkour, or curious to find out how the werewolf from Twilight takes on the role of a parkour boy, then perhaps you have some motivation give Tracers a try. If not, it is better to avoid this, lest you come out of the cinema totally regretting it and feel that you’ve probably caught the worst film of this year.

Movie Rating:

(So forgettable a movie, it’s probably not even worth mentioning. Tra... what?)

Review by Tho Shu Ling