The true story of a heist gone wrong... in all the right ways.
The Bank Job
By Cheryl Leong
Director: Roger Donaldson
Starring: Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, Stephen Campbell Moore, and Daniel Mays
Official website: http://www.thebankjobmovie.com/
You'd best be prepared because this here is one helluva complicated movie.
Drawing inspiration from the 1971 cleanout of a bank vault on London's Baker Street, The Bank Job is a taut heist thriller working on multiple, dizzying levels of complex conspiracies. On one level, you have the unwitting bank robbers. On the second, you have the requisite villains. And finally, pulling the strings at the top (or so they thought), are the government officials of MI5 / MI6 (nobody knows which either).
Terry Leather (Jason Statham) owns a dodgy used-car showroom, and has an even dodgier past. One fateful evening, he runs into old flame Martine Love (Saffron Burrows), who entices him with a foolproof plan of robbing Lloyds Bank on Marylebone Road. Together with their old crew, Kevin (Stephen Campbell Moore) and Dave (Daniel Mays), among others, this motley crew begins to tunnel their way into the underground vault.
What they didn't bargain for was that most of the safe-deposit boxes also contain a wealth of dirty little secrets. You name it, it's there. Corruption? Check. Sex scandals? Check. Criminal dealings? Check. Involving the British government and -gasp- the Royal Family itself? Check.
As you might've guessed, instructions for the robbery came from top brass, who are under fire to recover sexually compromising photographs of a certain royal Princess. The photographs were taken by one Michael X (Peter De Jersey), a real-life Trinidadian Black Power gangster who used them as his trump card against incarceration.
Now, it so happens that Martine is a mole planted by the bureaucracy. And just to further complicate things, the vault also contains a record of bribes paid to corrupt cops by Soho Porn King Lew Vogel (David Suchet). Needless to say, Vogel marches on the war path against the tunnel gang, altogether more ruthless and brutal than anybody could've imagined .
Not to generalize, but in general, the acting was simply superb. Jason Statham (Brit gangster-pic regular) turns in yet another solid performance. But the real gem is the stunning Saffron Burrows. There is an understated air of melancholy and mystery clinging to Burrows, and in turn, to Love. Hence, Love has a more emotionally frail and genuine accessibility than she might have otherwise. The tunnel gang is a bunch of endearing low-lifes, blundering most of the way, and more comical, than cunning.
The pace is even and measured. Tension and suspense is established from the get-go, and expertly maintained throughout. There is firm and masterful control over the directorial reigns of a good ole conspiracy heist. Lucky for us, because it just might have spiraled downward into a messy, torturously confusing web under a lesser direction.
In this nifty historical caper, you get a feeling that for once, the powers that be have decided to deliver something that's less obsessed with state-of-the-art gadgetry and cranked-up stunts. Instead, what you do get is a down-and-dirty (literally), gritty and intelligent movie that is practical and unpretentious. What it doesn't have in flash and violence, it makes up for with well-timed sprinklings of British humor, a crisp script and tight execution.
Art-house film it is not, but still a Job very well done, indeed.
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