Tracers Thrills.
by Nav Qateel
New York bike messenger Cam (Taylor Lautner) owes a lot of money to the Chinese mob. While out delivering a package, Cam wrecks his bike thanks to the beautiful Nikki (Marie Avgeropoulos), jumping from a rooftop right in front of him. Nikki and her group of friends jump from great heights and climb up buildings. Attracted to Nikki, Cam begins to hang with the group, learning how to do parkour as well as the others. But all is not as it seems. Cam finds himself pulling heists with his new friends, as he tries to get enough money to pay off the moneylender. However, Cam is in more trouble than he knows.
- Tracers
- Directed by
Daniel Benmayor - Cast
Taylor Lautner, Marie Avgeropoulos, Rafi Gavron - Release Date
20 March 2015 - Nav’s Grade: B
Director Daniel Benmayor really surprises with his latest effort, Tracers. We follow Cam as he learns the art of parkour. Parkour practitioners see the world as one giant obstacle course, and watching them tumble, jump and drop leaves you feeling out of breath. Twilight‘s Taylor Lautner really commits himself to the role of Cam, with the muscular actor being the ideal candidate for the sheer physicality required to pull something like this off. It would appear Lautner performed many of the stunts himself, making his performance all the more convincing.
The beautiful and talented Marie Avgeropoulos plays Nikki, Cam’s love interest. Avgeropoulos’ performance was also good, and she and Lautner had the right chemistry to make their characters work.
*****
Both director Benmayor and cinematographer Nelson Cragg deserve a lot of credit for making Tracers an effective thriller. The story is somewhat pedestrian until you add the thrills of parkour into the mix. And that’s where lots of clever camera work came into play, as we follow the gang as the do their thing. The shipyard and the New York City rooftops made fantastic backdrops for all the stunts we’re witness to.
Tracers was definitely a thrilling ride and I’m glad to see Taylor Lautner getting a chance to do something this good away from the shadow of the Twilight franchise. The actor has a couple of films still to come, one of which is a TV movie with Adam Sandler co-starring. I admittedly only watched this to see Marie Avgeropoulos, so I was doubly impressed with the proceedings.
Anywho, I have no trouble in recommending you go see Tracers, and fans of Parkour will not want to miss it.
