Tracers (film)

Plot

Cam (Taylor Lautner) is a bike messenger in New York City struggling to make ends meet. He rents from a woman, Angie, and her young son. He is accosted by thugs who warn that he has missed two payments on a $15,000 loan. After he crashes his bike when a stranger named Nikki (Marie Avgeropoulos) lands on him, he becomes intent on finding her. Intrigued by the leaps, bounds and physical prowess of parkour (or "tracing") demonstrated by her and her friends, Cam begins practicing and training. After a particularly daring stunt proves his abilities, Cam is introduced to her crew, a team that uses parkour to pull off heists.

Gang enforcers take Cam's only remaining family possession. They threaten Angie and her son, and she tells him he can no longer live there. Broke, homeless and desperate to clear his deepening debt to the violent Chinese Mafia, Cam joins the parkour group.

Acting on his attraction to Nikki, he kisses her but she quickly runs off. Later, she comes to him. They have sex on the wall and later move to the roof where he's staying. Cam learns that Nikki is involved with Miller, the cruel mastermind behind the group's activities, and to whom she owes a debt for him rescuing her brother. Cam reveals that he took the $15,000 loan in attempt to help his mother, who has since died. Vowing to pay off his debt once and for all and get Nikki away from an impossible situation, Cam joins the group for one last dangerous job. During a robbery gone wrong, one of their own is shot and killed. Cam is arrested but saved by Miller who in fact a DEA agent. He tries to convince Cam to remain in the group. To save Nikki, Cam, Dylan and Miller do one last heist at a safe house to steal diamonds. Cam eventually flees and Miller chases after him until they end up in Chinese gang territory where Miller is not allowed. After Miller is forced to leave, Cam gives the Chinese gang the diamonds, gets his car back and takes off with Nikki.

Cast

Production

The shooting of the film began on June 18, 2013, and wrapped on August 1, 2013, with filming locations including Central Park, Riverside Park, and Long Island City.

Critical response

On film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, critics gave Tracers a rating of 27%, based on 26 reviews, with a weighted average score of 4.5/10. On Metacritic, the film has a normalized score of 45 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Called "fun to watch" for the action sequences and energetic use of young actors trained in parkour, the plot was generally regarded as a "B-Movie".