Every individual meets a person who changes their life at some point. “The Takeover” on Netflix is a 2022 crime drama film that highlights the same through the relationship shared by Mel and Buddy. Mel met him at the age of sixteen, and their meeting was a fateful coincidence. From the very beginning, Mel was highly dedicated to saving animals and people who were innocent. She used her hacking abilities to shut down the air force base every week, and the officers were unable to figure out the reason behind it. Buddy was a master hacker, and he immediately spotted her location on the map and headed to her house. But to his surprise, Buddy was shocked to see that a young sixteen-year-old was responsible for this! He wanted to know the reason behind shutting down those jets, and Mel simply answered that she wanted to stop the noise that scared the seals. Together they allied, and Mel got to learn various tricks needed for hacking. But things took a different turn when Mel was framed in a fake murder case in Rotterdam. There was only one person who could’ve helped her out, and that was Buddy. Mel worked for a company named Rotramax, where she was assigned to check the database and euro codes for their first self-driving bus. Her team had been working on this project for over three months, and one final check was left to be done.
Mel plugged in her laptop and connected to the Rotramax servers. Well, she logged into their server and checked out everything as usual! Until Mel and her colleague, Richelle, found out about another set of codes that was leaking all the information about the company; well, Mel required more time to figure out a way to stop the hackers, so she decided to block them with her trojan horse for a while. Mel’s trojan horse blocked every single computer, and the hackers couldn’t find a way to revoke it. Mel left for a date with a man named Thomas, but the date turned out to be boring, and Mel decided to leave his house abruptly. He promised her to cook the food himself but ended up ordering Chinese takeaway instead. Every night, Mel would track down criminals who tricked common people into earning money, and with the help of her friends Jay and Yu, she transferred the crypto money of several companies to charity.
But soon, Mel’s peace was about to turn into a nightmare. Her security alarms notified her that an intruder was trying to barge in through the front door. So, Mel had no choice but to hide in her apartment. Two men were armed, and they went through her personal belongings and took photos of her room. Mel decided to make a run, but the intruders figured out her presence and followed her throughout the city. Somehow, Mel managed to escape and decided to file a police complaint against them at the local police station. Here, she met officer Dries Daoudi and explained the whole situation to him. But for some reason, he ignored her statements. Daoudi commanded her to stay put, and he went ahead to check something. And guess what? Mel spotted the same men in the police station complaining about the photos she had on her wall.
Those photos were evidence of all the companies that Mel had tricked. She knew that approaching the police would cause her major damage, so she escaped and hid at Thomas’ place. Here, she noticed that all the news channels were showing a clip of Mel’s involvement in a murder case. Her face was morphed and used in the image of a murderer, and they used this clip to frame her for a fake murder. Well, Mel couldn’t understand the reason for framing her, so she began to look for clues, but somehow, those two men figured out her location every single time and even threatened to kill Thomas. Now, Thomas was involved in the same, and they decided to hide in Thomas’ bar down the road. But a man named Rogers contacted Thomas and requested him to hand over Mel to him. Well, Mel knew that they’d figure out their hiding spot, and both of them escaped from the bar as well.
Now, Mel’s friends recommended she approach Buddy, but she initially didn’t. Later, she had to take his help since he was the only person with enough knowledge to crack a hacking code. Jay contacted Buddy, and after crossing the border, they met him in Belgium. At first, Mel was skeptical about the whole situation since she had betrayed Buddy. Well, Buddy and Mel took down various criminal hackers and handed them over to the police, and all the stolen money was returned to the victims. But Buddy fooled her and kept the whole money for himself. So, Mel decided to hand him over to the police, but Interpol couldn’t figure out his location. Back at his place, Buddy had a whole system for hacking, and Mel helped him log into the Rotramax database.
Here, Buddy retrieved all the data from Rotramax’s system and realized that the company was associated with Xiaoming, a software company, which was, in turn, connected to different companies across various countries, and they specialized in facial recognition. The self-driving bus was attached to scanners that would read the faces of all the people who would travel through it. All the personal data was transferred to the Chinese government, which would harvest this information for its own personal use. Well, Mel’s trojan horse stopped the functioning of various companies, and they wanted to kill her for the trouble caused. As she was a hacker herself, no one would believe her side of the story. But before Buddy could retrieve more information, Rogers and his men shot him down.
Mel and Thomas managed to escape, but he decided to inform Daoudi about their location as he was the only person who could keep them safe. But Mel escaped and sneaked into Rotramax’s control room. She logged into their database and managed to find her scans. These scans were the only way to prove her innocence since the same footage was used to morph her face. But Rogers arrived and threatened her to encrypt the Trojan horse. But Mel managed to shut down the system and escaped from the room. Rogers attempted to shoot them down, but Daoudi captured him. Daoudi was about to arrest Mel, but she requested one final chance to prove her innocence. So, Mel logged into the database again and showed him the original footage of the murderer.
When Rogers used his gun to shoot Mel, the bullet ended up breaking the control room system. The whole system caught fire, and the bus went out of control. There were 15 people inside the bus, including the CEO of Rotramax. All the members of the company were busy with its launch, and now the bus was headed towards the Erasmus Bridge. Well, they had to figure out a way to stop the bus, and luckily, Thomas had Buddy’s car. He often carried a transceiver with him, and Mel requested him to enter the bus and attach the transceiver to its receiver. Even though it was tricky, Thomas managed to use his car and enter the bus through the top window. He quickly attached it, and Mel broke down the codes and stopped the bus.
The movie ended on a good note, as Mel was cleared of all suspicions and once again saved innocent people from a criminal organization. But she had more surprises to get! Buddy left a video recording, which was automatically transferred to Mel when she didn’t log in to his software for more than three days. Buddy had saved up all the stolen money and used it to create huge opportunities for Mel. She could work with multinationals, government leaders, and multi-billionaires. Buddy always respected her since Mel wanted to change the world and make it a better place for those who were innocent. Buddy was a father figure to her, but a misunderstanding certainly separated them for a long time. Even though it was a life-threatening situation for Mel, this helped her to clear up her misunderstanding and mend the broken bond with Buddy.
See more: Why Was Mel Bandison Framed For A Murder Case In The Netflix Film ‘The Takeover’?
