 Tagline: The true story of a heist gone wrong... in all the right ways. Terry Leather (Jason Statham) and his dodgy friends aren't London's great criminals. But when they're approached by the beautiful Martine Love (Saffron Burrows) and asked to plunder a local bank's priceless safe deposit vault, the small time hoods see the job as a chance of a lifetime. But what they don't know about the true purpose of the robbery may kill them as they quickly find themselves embroiled in a scheme involving a Black Power leader, the MI-5, corrupt detectives, a local porn king and even the Royal Family in this pulse pounding crime drama, based on the greatest heist in British history. Storyline: Business is slow for Terry Leather, a London car dealer, married with children. He's an artful dodger, so Martine, a former model with a thing for him, brings him her scheme: a bank's alarm is off for a couple weeks, so let's tunnel into the vault. He assembles a team, not realizing her real goal is a safe-deposit box with compromising photos of a royal: she needs the photos to trade for avoiding a jail sentence - and MI-5, or is it MI-6, is pulling the strings two steps removed. A Trinidadian thug, a high-end bordello owner, and a pornographer also have things stored in the vault, so the break-in threatens many a powerful personage. Is there any way these amateurs can pull it off? Written by Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, July 17, 2008 -- You know what scares me more? Living and dying with nothing to show for it. Simply stated, The Bank Job is one of the finest movies of the year. It may also be the best caper movie yet, thanks to its no-holds-barred approach, not towards the planning of the robbery itself, which seems to be the focal point of your more standard-fare heist movies like Ocean's Eleven, but with regard to the consequences of the robbery and the chaos that ensues when more than money is stolen from the bank. The Bank Job takes us into the trenches and delves into the nitty gritty, dirty underbelly when robberies get far too personal and intricate. The repercussions of the caper are felt throughout the entirety of the upper echelons of London's power elite. The robbery takes various esteemed Londoners to the brink of chaos and despair, dozens of lives intertwine, and the stakes are raised considerably for all involved, both in the heist and those on its periphery. What makes The Bank Job so spectacular is that it is loosely based on historical fact, although the extent to which the film retains fact versus creates fiction is open to debate, as the British government remains tight-lipped over the actual robbery that occurred on September 11, 1971. In The Bank Job, Martine Love (Saffron Burrows, Reign Over Me) approaches fellow countrymen Terry Leather (Jason Statham, War) with an opportunity to pull off the perfect bank heist. Terry rallies a few chums and agrees to the job. Little does he know that Martine's primary purpose is to secure a series of shocking photographs for Britain's MI5, which are the property of a Black Power activist named Michael X (Peter De Jersey). Michael X secures the photos in a bank safety deposit box as leverage to avoid prosecution for his crimes. As the plot intensifies and more secrets are revealed, Terry and his co-robbers find themselves embroiled in various scandals that involve both local and national authority figures and influential Britons, and the bank job becomes a deadly cat-and-mouse game with lives, reputations, and perhaps even places the good name of the Royal Family itself on the brink of ruin. The Bank Job is fantastic, tense, and exhilarating movie. The various gut-wrenching scenes depicting the actual robbery are so well staged and photographed that I could not help but feel simultanously nervous and excited; the tension throughout is so palpable and thick that you could spread it like jam. Director Roger Donaldson (The World's Fastest Indian) never allows his audience to escape the movie's tension; it seeps out of the screen and into our consciousness, transporting us to 1971 England, into a tunnel under a bank, into the vault, into a makeshift torture room, into London's famed Paddington Station, and into every other major and minor locale seen in the movie. We cannot escape it even if we wanted to, but when a movie is this exhilarating, there was nowhere else I wanted to be than sharing the drama and intrigue of The Bank Job. Donaldson's first-rate direction is simple yet harrowingly effective. His sometimes-cockeyed angles and up-close-and-personal approach to filming the characters during their high moments of strength, their low moments of despair, and everything in between creates a spine-chilling yet rousing sense of realism that is almost too tense to bear at times but is nevertheless intoxicating. Donaldson deserves an Oscar nomination for his direction of The Bank Job. Every actor in The Bank Job is unequivocally fantastic, and Jason Statham once again proves he's more than a buff body who can kick and punch with the best of them. He's a fine dramatic actor who holds his own and, while he receives top billing for The Bank Job, it is his fine supporting cast that carries the movie. Filled with various character actors who exude nothing but unequivocal perfection and professionalism in their roles, The Bank Job stands apart from the crowd through a cast that, other than Statham and Burrows, isn't necessarily comprised of household names but can act with the best of the best, and they prove their worth here. While the movie stands tall on its own merits, the absolutely first-rate score that itself becomes a character adds several layers of tension and heart-stopping thrills to many sequences throughout the movie. It retains a tense, powerful beat replete with the appropriate lows and percussion accompaniment that, dare I say, should garner composer J. Peter Robinson an Oscar nomination of his own. Despite the presence of action star Jason Statham, The Bank Job isn't an action movie, but rather a thinking man's caper with a few minor pieces of action thrown into the mix. You won't see any intricate shootouts, martial arts showdowns, high speed car chases, or other Statham staples, but what you will see is the actor in his element, portraying a deep, motivated, intelligent character who relies on brains over brawn to accomplish his tasks. You'll also see one heck of a movie, a movie that has assuaged the sour taste that one of director Roger Donaldson's previous films, The Recruit, left me with. I believe the Bank Job to be worthy of a few Oscar nominations, and I cannot help but highly recommend the movie. Be aware, however, that The Bank Job is rated "R" for good reason. Plenty of nudity, language, and a few cringe-inducing acts of violence are present in the film. Lionsgate has once again delivered a fine Blu-ray product with The Bank Job. Sporting a video transfer that seems true to the mood of the film, a first-rate audio track, and a welcome supplemental package, I can also highly recommend the Blu-ray disc itself. Cast Notes: Jason Statham (Terry Leather), Saffron Burrows (Martine Love), Stephen Campbell Moore (Kevin Swain), Daniel Mays (Dave Shilling), James Faulkner (Guy Singer), Alki David (Bambas), Michael Jibson (Eddie Burton), Georgia Taylor (Ingrid Burton), Richard Lintern (Tim Everett), Peter Bowles (Miles Urquart), Alistair Petrie (Philip Lisle), Hattie Morahan (Gale Benson), Julian Lewis Jones (Snow), Andrew Brooke (Quinn), Rupert Frazer (Lord Drysdale). IMDb Rating (01/22/11): 7.4/10 from 53,389 users
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