The Bank Job
Films that are based on true stories are by and large tough to take, as the line between fiction and reality is blurred to the extent that one wonders why it exists in the first place. The producers of The Bank Job suggest that the real facts about the 1971 robbery of a bank in Baker Street that had officials in Britain issuing a D-Notice (a gag order, essentially) and set off rumours about members of the Royal Family.
Overall, though, there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about this movie. Think Guy Ritchie-lite. In fact, Jason Statham’s even in it as the lead. He plays Terry, who owns a failing service garage. He is seriously in debt, too, and is willing to do just about anything to pay off his vicious debt-collectors.
Saffron Burrows is Martine, a stunning woman who arrives just in time to tell Terry that she has just the thing to get him out of the pinch. She enlists him to rob a bank. The snare is that she’s setting him up while the plus is that he’ll get to keep the money. Terry comes up with a rough and ready crew in a matter of a few carefully concocted but usual scenes and the heist is on. Things get complex with relative haste and, avoiding spoilers, all of King and Country ends up entangled in the succeeding disarray.
Most of The Bank Job is formulaic. Its opening scenes of quick-time set-ups can be traced to just about every heist movie ever made and the heap of characters all seem very familiar from other plot outlines. The introduction to the film is rather arduous, in fact, and the first half hour of incidental fur could be easily ignored without losing much by way of satisfaction. For a movie about royal scandals, hookers, porn kings, strip clubs, black power, gangsters, and celebrities, The Bank Job moves at a snail’s pace.
Another problem here is that the back-story is very exciting and the film captures to hone in on it in just about every way. While we’ll probably never know the real story behind this heist, the conjecture is a hell of a good time. Take this portion from a February 2008 article from The Daily Mail: “Speculation quickly arose that compromising sexual photographs of the queen’s sister, the late Princess Margaret, had been uncovered in the bank vault. It was rumoured they had been stashed away by well-known underworld figure Michael X. A drug dealer and Black Power leader, he was convicted of murder and hanged in Trinidad in 1975. A government file on him will remain closed until 2054. The Mirror can for the first time reveal that Fleet Street editors of the day were approached directly by senior government officials and told to drop the story.” Now that’s a ripping good yarn!
Failing to capture that hectic vigour is a crime, that’s for sure. While The Bank Job does do a valiant enough job as a sort of Snatch rip-off, overall it fumbles and farts about with little energy. Statham is good as the lead, as he usually is in these types of pictures, but the rest of the cast leaves a lot to be desired despite having some rather distinctive character traits. The energy is missing from the bad guys, too, as they merely fiddle about without any memorable attitude.
There is just no zest to this film, which is such a shame. All of the character appears zapped from the performers, as though the portrayal was meant to be bereft of feeling. The setup for the crime is captured in such a mundane way that one has to work uphill to capture any energy for the remainder of the movie. It’s all too bad, as this could have been something masterful and amusing. As it is, it’s just too run of the mill and drab to recommend.
Trailer:
