Leguizamo makes ‘The Take’ worth it

If you were going to show what happens to a man who loses the best part of himself, you’d want to cast John Leguizamo, who has spent his career leaping from one extreme characterization to another.

In “The Take,” Leguizamo is armored-car driver Felix De La Pena, a sweet-natured family man in L.A.’s Eastside who tosses bromides to his young son (“Make good choices!”) as he leaves for work.

In an instant, the life Felix has built with his wife, Marina (Rosie Perez), is destroyed when a menacing, well-organized hijacker (Tyrese Gibson) sticks a gun in Felix’s face, forces him to participate in a robbery, then shoots him in the head, leaving him for dead.

The brain heals, or doesn’t, in improbable ways, and the Felix who returns home has been drained of his sweetness. He wants revenge but has lost the mental acuity necessary to plan it. This frustration creates a compulsive anger that pits him against his entire befuddled family. Worse, law enforcement officers are acting as if they suspect Felix of being the inside man in the robbery.

Director Brad Furman, in his feature film debut, uses discipline and empathy to put the viewer in Felix’s shoes. His Boyle Heights is authentic and his montage cutting between surgeons trying to rebuild Felix’s brain and the hijacker savoring his triumph is intense.

Screenwriting twins Josh and Jonas Pate give Furman the luxury of characters who struggle through life but don’t give sermons about it. They are sensitive enough to touch anyone who has watched a loved one suffer from a brain disorder, and aggressive enough to put a slightly recovered Felix in the middle of a bloody gun battle that spills from Boyle Heights into downtown L.A.

Leguizamo, who gained notoriety in 1991 with a play in which he portrayed all seven characters, is mature enough now to capture both halves of Felix. He prepares with an unspoken sense of dread for what seems certain to be a suicidal showdown. Jesus turned the other cheek, his wife tells him desperately. “Jesus,” the new Felix answers gruffly, “never got shot.”

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“The Take.” MPAA rating: R for violence, language, sexual content and some drug use. Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes. Mann Criterion 6 Theatres, 1313 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica, (310) 395-1599.