The Bank Job (2008)

O Masterpiece
O Excellent
X Rental
O OK
O Mediocrity
O Avoid

Review by Jason Pyles / March 12, 2008

Our fascination with the heist movie may be easily explainable. Perhaps it’s merely used as an “ideological safety valve,” a way to release our pent-up desires to indulge in something forbidden, such as bank robbery. Perhaps it’s our tendency to root for the underdog, seeing the little guy “stick it to The Man” by beating The System. Or perhaps heist movies are just fun. Such is the case with “The Bank Job,” a heist movie based on a true story.

The film opens in 1970, in the Caribbean, where some young people are enjoying a naughty pool party, then an even naughtier, more-the-merrier bedroom party, while unwittingly being snapped by a stealthy photographer. Either the photographer is an opportunistic perv, or he’s gathering blackmailing materials. It’s the latter.

Next we learn we’re in East London, 1971, where our lusty story unfolds. Michael X (Peter De Jersey) is a slumlord, a drug dealer and a vicious killer. He is on his way to court to face a slam-dunk conviction for kidnapping and extortion, but he’s got some sultry Get-Out-of-Jail-Free cards: Michael X happens to be that same stealthy photographer who has damning photos of someone who turns out to be royalty, namely young, frisky, Princess Margaret (Louise Chambers). And as long as Michael X has these photos in his possession, he’s untouchable.

But MI5 (a lofty, United Kingdom security agency similar to the FBI or CIA) desperately wants to lock up Michael X and destroy the royal, pornographic portraits. Wishing to avoid potential scandal-by-association, MI5 muscles a shady lady (Saffron Burrows) to commission her criminal acquaintances to rob the safety-deposit boxes at Lloyd Bank where Michael X’s x-rated princess pictures are kept. This is where Jason Statham comes in.

All of this is merely set-up for the real story, which is how Terry (Statham) and his friends plan to tunnel into the bank and retrieve its riches, but they unknowingly unlock multiple Pandora’s boxes. Yes, it seems that several sensitive items belonging to powerful people in London are stored at this very bank. “The Bank Job” becomes increasingly entertaining as we watch our robbers’ escalating peril, because of the contents they steal.

Unlike the slick-looking, flawlessly executed “Italian Job” (2003) and “Ocean’s” movies, “The Bank Job” has an air of authenticity. It seems like regular people, like you and me, trying to pull off a bank job, complete with unlucky snags and human incompetence. Much of this movie appears as though it could actually happen, and indeed, it supposedly did.

Apparently, some people just can’t settle for ideological safety valves — and thank goodness. Where else would we get the inspiration for all our heist movies?

Directed by Roger Donaldson
Jason Statham / Saffron Burrows / Peter De Jersey
Action / Adventure 110 min.
MPAA: R (for sexual content, nudity, violence and language)

U.S. Release Date: March 7, 2008
Copyright 2008: 255