First of all you have to know that “The Bank Job” is based
on a true story of a bank robbery which happened in 1971 in Baker Street, London.
Nobody was arrested and no money was recovered. The story was never revealed as
a D-Notice issued by the British government on media reports.
Now the movie comes to reveal the truth for the first time
ever about that story.
The movie opens in the Caribbean
where a member of the royal family, simply called “The Princess” in the movie,
is caught in compromising photos.
Martine Love, (Saffron Burrows) a beautiful
model, is sent by MI5 to get the pictures which are in a
safety deposit box in a bank in London.
The box belongs to Michael X (Peter
De Jersey), a black militant, who uses the photos in
order to avoid trouble with MI5.
Martine goes to Terry (Jason Statham),
from her old neighborhood, to help her get the photos. Terry, a husband and
father of two young daughters, has a car-sales garage and Martine arrives just when
two debt-collectors were damaging his cars. But don’t get him wrong. Terry is
not that soft as you may believe, as he knows his way around all the strip clubs
in town and he owes money to thugs.
Martine doesn’t tell Terry what the actual plan is, instead
leaving him to believe that this is a common bank robbery, targeting a roomful
of safe-deposit boxes worth millions in cash and jewelry.
So Terry starts to gather his petty-criminal friends in
order to execute the plan of robbing the bank on Baker Street, London.
Now, Tarry’s friends are…special. One is a failed porn star,
another is a fashion photographer wannabe and the lookout doesn’t know how to
properly use a walkie-talkie.
Even so, the gang takes itself very seriously and they all
believe that are very good at what are they doing.
In order to carry out their plan they buy a shop which is
close to the bank and start digging a tunnel to reach the floor of the bank
vault.
The robbers seem to have luck on their side as even though
police listen to their plan, they fail to locate them.
Soon the truth about the photographs is revealed and other
secrets come to surface as well.
Terry manages to get his hands on the photos and soon has
other ideas. But he is not the only one. Lew Vogel (David
Suchet), who owns a sex club and got his hand on some of the valuables from the
robbery, has some ideas of his own.
It’s nice to see these men at work as
the writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais ("The Commitments,"
"Across the Universe") and director Roger Donaldson ("Thirteen
Days," "The Recruit") didn’t focus very much on the morality of the
story or explicit social commentary.
They don’t spend very much time on the
characters' development and the dialogues are a hint to character’s
motivations.
“The Bank Job” doesn’t lack in romance
and comedy as Martine and Terry seem to have a heat between them, but in the end
Terry is decent. Daniel Mays, the porn-star, and Stephen Campbell Moore, as the
photographer, seem to bring a bit of comic in this movie. Still, forward motion
is what the movie is all about.
Rotten Tomatoes aggregator gave the
movie a 76 percent with 50 positive critics. Its consensus A thoroughly entertaining British heist
thriller. “Well cast and crisply
directed, The Bank Job is a thoroughly entertaining British heist thriller.”
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Written by: Dick
Clement, Ian La Frenais
Directed By: Roger
Donaldson
Cast: Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, Stephen Campbell Moore, Daniel Mays, James Faulkner, Alki David,
Michael Jibson, and Richard Lintern
Release Date: March 7,
2008
Running Time: 110
minutes, Color
Origin: UK
Rated:R
