Caper flick sports some new moves
Michael Bayer
Issue date: 3/25/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment
Oh, Guy Ritchie, you've been outdone.
An Australian auteur and your right hand man, Jason Statham, have bested you in a cat-and-mouse thriller that is easily the most enticing film of the year thus far.
Roger Donaldson's "The Bank Job" is just the right mix of style, verve and charm that turns an ordinary heist film into that legitimate piece of red-blooded entertainment.
Based on a true story and written by "Across the Universe" co-scribes Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais, "The Bank Job" depicts the 1971 Baker Street robbery, one of England's largest bank burglaries that saw zero suspects caught and recovered not a single pound.
The story gets off to a rollicking start after the Crown's Princess Margaret is photographed in, ahem, a compromising position. The photographs are snapped by Michael X (Peter De Jersey), a Black Nationalist taking his cues and name from Malcolm X, who uses the naughty candids to blackmail the British government to let him out of the country.
Meanwhile, caught coming back from Morocco with cocaine, Martine Love (Saffron Burrows) negotiates with an MI-5 agent (Richard Lintern) for immunity.
Their deal stipulates she must organize a robbery of London's Baker Street Bank to recover the photographs and avoid a potential international embarrassment along the way.
Assembling a crew with the help of Terry Leather (Jason Statham), Martine lets the boys know they can keep all the loot the pinch, so long as the contents of Michael X's Box 118 end up in the government's greedy hands.
But the twists get more twisted when Terry and Company stumble onto several kinky photographs of other high-ranking government officials.
Factor in Porn King Lew Vogel (David Suchet) losing his ledger detailing all the coppers he has on the payroll and a gaggle of angry bank patrons out of thousands of pounds and our small-timers are nearly ruined well before the film's half-way mark.
This cast is indeed a charming and eclectic bunch of ne'er-do-wells.
An Australian auteur and your right hand man, Jason Statham, have bested you in a cat-and-mouse thriller that is easily the most enticing film of the year thus far.
Roger Donaldson's "The Bank Job" is just the right mix of style, verve and charm that turns an ordinary heist film into that legitimate piece of red-blooded entertainment.
Based on a true story and written by "Across the Universe" co-scribes Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais, "The Bank Job" depicts the 1971 Baker Street robbery, one of England's largest bank burglaries that saw zero suspects caught and recovered not a single pound.
The story gets off to a rollicking start after the Crown's Princess Margaret is photographed in, ahem, a compromising position. The photographs are snapped by Michael X (Peter De Jersey), a Black Nationalist taking his cues and name from Malcolm X, who uses the naughty candids to blackmail the British government to let him out of the country.
Meanwhile, caught coming back from Morocco with cocaine, Martine Love (Saffron Burrows) negotiates with an MI-5 agent (Richard Lintern) for immunity.
Their deal stipulates she must organize a robbery of London's Baker Street Bank to recover the photographs and avoid a potential international embarrassment along the way.
Assembling a crew with the help of Terry Leather (Jason Statham), Martine lets the boys know they can keep all the loot the pinch, so long as the contents of Michael X's Box 118 end up in the government's greedy hands.
But the twists get more twisted when Terry and Company stumble onto several kinky photographs of other high-ranking government officials.
Factor in Porn King Lew Vogel (David Suchet) losing his ledger detailing all the coppers he has on the payroll and a gaggle of angry bank patrons out of thousands of pounds and our small-timers are nearly ruined well before the film's half-way mark.
This cast is indeed a charming and eclectic bunch of ne'er-do-wells.
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