The Bank Job (B- or 2.5/4 stars)
In September of 1971, a band of amateur thieves tunneled into the vault of London's Baker Street bank & looted hundreds of safe deposit boxes full of $$, jewelry, & scandalous photographs. Worth over 3 million pounds, none of it was ever recovered. Heck, no one was even arrested! The robbery made headlines for a while, but then the case just ... disappeared. 'The Bank Job', directed by Roger Donaldson (Cocktail, The Recruit), tells the 'mostly' true story of those robbers, their heist, and WHY they got away with it all. Rarely riveting, sometimes confounding, but 'TBJ' is never less than an interesting story well told.
Terry Leather (Jason Statham), an East End car dealer is in debt to a very angry loan shark. He has a loving wife, and 2 beautiful daughters, but he's obviously struggling. But everything changes when ex-lover & beautiful model, Martine Love (Saffron Burrows) re-enters his life. She needs a low-key scam artist (such as him) & proposes to Terry that he (and some of his buddies) help her rob Baker Street bank; she's been given 'inside' info that their security systems will be down for about a week. Recognizing the opportunity of a lifetime, Terry & his buddies agree to assist. However, he doesn't realizing that Martine 'may' be pulling one over on him. An MI5 agent, Tim (Richard Lintern) is pulling her strings; asking Martine to do him a favor & retrieve the contents of safe deposit box #118.
The contents in said box include compromising photos of Princess Margaret that are being used to blackmail the British government! With the plan a 'go', Terry gathers a crew of 6 (including characters played by Daniel Mays & Stephen Campbell Moore). Little do they know what they're 'really' getting into. The heist goes well. Though, because they're amateurs, this leads to some fairly amusing scenes where they're almost caught. Drilling underneath a restaurant, you've got to figure that someone will hear/feel the drilling. After dodging some curious cops, the team of 6 follow through on their mission ... and the rest is history.
The secrets uncovered in those safe deposit boxes are cause for the complexities of this film. How can you resist a story such as this when you've got the dirty indiscretions of the Royals, MI5 hot on the case, unknowing coppers, crooked coppers, double crossings, ransoms, tortures, government gagging orders (on the press), political intrigue, lies, murder, extortion, corruption, and revolutionary activity; meaning a devilish crime lord, Michael X ... British counterpart to Malcolm X. In fact, his connection is crucial to this caper. 'The Bank Job' does well to detail every single aspect of what went down. The heist itself (nicknamed the 'Walkie-Talkie Robbery') is only a fragment of the film. It's everything that goes on before, during, and after the heist that is so intriguing. Because shady characters were covering for even more shady characters, it's actually the robbers themselves who got out Scott-free! The heist went 'wrong' in all the 'right' ways for them.
I generally liked the supporting characters, here. No one is tangential or protracted. We're given what we need to know about everybody, and I liked everybody. That said, the jury is still out for me on Jason Statham. He's very good in the last 10-15 min. or so. But I can think of no less than 5 other actors who are both bad-ass & charismatic. Oh, Statham's bad-ass, alright. But I have yet to find him charismatic. There are moments throughout the film that 'dawdle' a bit. And some of the outer-band characters failed to interest me. All in all though, 'The Bank Job' is a good film to catch, maybe on DVD or TV. It's a well constructed thriller, efficiently written, & it is able to hold interest amid the labyrinthine subplots. It's satisfying to watch the inner workings of a crime story unfold; and to have the 'real' bad guys lose out. I recommend 'TBJ'. But it's less than exceptional.
Terry Leather (Jason Statham), an East End car dealer is in debt to a very angry loan shark. He has a loving wife, and 2 beautiful daughters, but he's obviously struggling. But everything changes when ex-lover & beautiful model, Martine Love (Saffron Burrows) re-enters his life. She needs a low-key scam artist (such as him) & proposes to Terry that he (and some of his buddies) help her rob Baker Street bank; she's been given 'inside' info that their security systems will be down for about a week. Recognizing the opportunity of a lifetime, Terry & his buddies agree to assist. However, he doesn't realizing that Martine 'may' be pulling one over on him. An MI5 agent, Tim (Richard Lintern) is pulling her strings; asking Martine to do him a favor & retrieve the contents of safe deposit box #118.
The contents in said box include compromising photos of Princess Margaret that are being used to blackmail the British government! With the plan a 'go', Terry gathers a crew of 6 (including characters played by Daniel Mays & Stephen Campbell Moore). Little do they know what they're 'really' getting into. The heist goes well. Though, because they're amateurs, this leads to some fairly amusing scenes where they're almost caught. Drilling underneath a restaurant, you've got to figure that someone will hear/feel the drilling. After dodging some curious cops, the team of 6 follow through on their mission ... and the rest is history.
The secrets uncovered in those safe deposit boxes are cause for the complexities of this film. How can you resist a story such as this when you've got the dirty indiscretions of the Royals, MI5 hot on the case, unknowing coppers, crooked coppers, double crossings, ransoms, tortures, government gagging orders (on the press), political intrigue, lies, murder, extortion, corruption, and revolutionary activity; meaning a devilish crime lord, Michael X ... British counterpart to Malcolm X. In fact, his connection is crucial to this caper. 'The Bank Job' does well to detail every single aspect of what went down. The heist itself (nicknamed the 'Walkie-Talkie Robbery') is only a fragment of the film. It's everything that goes on before, during, and after the heist that is so intriguing. Because shady characters were covering for even more shady characters, it's actually the robbers themselves who got out Scott-free! The heist went 'wrong' in all the 'right' ways for them.
I generally liked the supporting characters, here. No one is tangential or protracted. We're given what we need to know about everybody, and I liked everybody. That said, the jury is still out for me on Jason Statham. He's very good in the last 10-15 min. or so. But I can think of no less than 5 other actors who are both bad-ass & charismatic. Oh, Statham's bad-ass, alright. But I have yet to find him charismatic. There are moments throughout the film that 'dawdle' a bit. And some of the outer-band characters failed to interest me. All in all though, 'The Bank Job' is a good film to catch, maybe on DVD or TV. It's a well constructed thriller, efficiently written, & it is able to hold interest amid the labyrinthine subplots. It's satisfying to watch the inner workings of a crime story unfold; and to have the 'real' bad guys lose out. I recommend 'TBJ'. But it's less than exceptional.