Denzel Washington Turns Thief In "The Take"

Denzel Washington plays a convincing thief, leaving fans doing double takes after Netflix dropped the first look at “The Take.”

The movie casts him as Christian Carter, a master thief with his sights on Manhattan’s richest bank.

Carter brings Noah, played by Robert Pattinson, into his crew. The former Army captain is still finding his feet after leaving the service. But Noah’s girlfriend, Rose (Daisy Edgar-Jones), also works as a teller at the bank. Noah must work out who to trust to survive the robbery.

The story skips back and forth in time and mostly sticks to Noah’s view. “You only know what he knows,” director Fernando Meirelles told Netflix’s Tudum.

On set, Washington would change his lines as they filmed. “Each take is a surprise,” Meirelles said.

Edgar-Jones’ take on Rose changed the director’s view. “I see what I have and I incorporate it,” he said.

Playing a thief flips Washington’s role in “Inside Man.”

In Spike Lee’s 2006 bank-heist film, Washington played Detective Keith Frazier. Clive Owen played the man Frazier faced: Dalton Russell, who led the robbery at a Manhattan bank.

Netflix bought the script for “The Take” from Simon Kinberg in May 2020, years before it named the stars. Five years later, on May 14, 2025, Netflix named its three stars: Washington, Pattinson and Edgar-Jones. It was still called “Here Comes The Flood.”

Meirelles would direct Kinberg’s script and serve as a producer. Kinberg and Audrey Chon were also set to produce through Genre Films, with Samson Mucke as executive producer.

The cameras started rolling on November 3, 2025, and the shoot ended on January 22, 2026. The shoot took the team to Jersey City, Hoboken and Newark in New Jersey, as well as Atlanta and New York City.

Its release plans had shifted along the way. On January 7, 2026, while the shoot was still underway, Netflix included the film in its plans for releases that year.

By November 4, the new title and a 2027 release plan were known. The first look pins down the date: January 15, 2027, in select theaters and on Netflix.