| The Bank Job [2008]
File Info>>
Video:
Codec: XVID
Bitrate: 1062 kbps
FPS: 25.00
Resolution: 688x288
Audio:
Codec: AC3
Sample Rate: 48000Hz
Bitrate: 448 kbps
Channel Count: 6
Channel Positions: Front: L C R, Rear: L R, LFE
Plot>>
The Bank Job is inspired by an extraordinary true event, a daring, unsolved robbery, which took place more than 35 years ago in London. A highly-charged thriller, directed by Roger Donaldson and starring Jason Statham and Saffron Burrows, it interweaves a heady combination of intrigue, scandal and danger and has been described by its producers as "an amazing untold story of murder, sex and corruption". In September 1971, thieves tunnelled into the vault of a bank in London's Baker Street and looted safe deposit boxes of cash and jewellery worth millions and millions of pounds. None of it was recovered. Nobody was arrested. The robbery made headlines for a few days and then disappeared - the result of a UK Government 'D' Notice, gagging the press. This film reveals what was hidden in those boxes. The story involves murder, corruption and a sex scandal with links to the Royal Family - a story in which the thieves were the most innocent people involved.
Everyone remembers The Great Train Robbery: Ronnie Biggs, the Costa Del Crime, that dodgy Phil Collins movie. Few recall the Walkie-Talkie Robbery of 1971, when thieves tunnelled into Lloyds Bank and robbed safety deposit boxes containing wads of cash, jewels and dirty little secrets. Among them were snaps of a royal princess taking it every which way… grubby pics MI5 wanted so bad they set up the heist themselves then gagged the press.
“The names have been changed to protect the guilty,” jokes this zippy yet anaemic exposé of the robbers and the Royal. In the dock is the ever-likeable Jason Statham, who stars as Terry, a dodgy motor-trader with a wide-boy look: leather coat, badger stubble, geezer twinkle in the eye. When old flame turned MI5 stooge Martine (Saffron Burrows) approaches him, he jumps at what Arthur Daley would’ve called a nice little earner.
Minder’s old lag isn’t the only aging TV character who springs to mind. Screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais cut their teeth on The Likely Lads and Porridge, so the retro vibe’s no shocker. But unlike Life On Mars, the ’70s time warp is depressingly unironic – with all stereotypes intact. You half expect Terry and June to do a walk-on; even David Suchet’s porn baron looks like he’s auditioning as the third Ronnie.
Although the heist’s a bodge-job – overheard radio chatter creating the ‘Walkie-Talkie’ moniker – director Roger Donaldson keeps things ticking like clockwork. As the conspiracy tightens, the second half darkens with a gruesome blowtorch torture scene and cat’s cradle plotting. Pity the shortage of adrenalin-amped action serves to hamstring Statham’s hard man credentials. Meanwhile, his one big acting moment (“I’ve brought you more greef than ’appyness,” he confesses to his pissed off missus) makes him seem less Britain’s Steve McQueen than Dennis Waterman. Could be worse. At least he’s not the new Phil Collins…
Fun retro heist movie illuminates a long-forgotten British blag. Despite a smart set-up, its smash 'n' grab raid on '70s nostalgia leaves little to dissect over a post-movie pint.
This is a good old British family tale about bank robbers, Soho pornographers, bent policemen, sexually perverse public-school politicos and, horror of horrors, a young female royal who likes a bit of an orgy.
All we lack is the Duke of Edinburgh ordering MI5 to assassinate the Archbishop of Canterbury. But we do get Lord Mountbatten charitably calling the sexy royal a mere scallywag.
All this, and even more, is based on a famous bank robbery of 1971 when a posse of amateur thieves got wind of the fact that they could break into Lloyds Bank in Baker Street if they only got into Le Sac, a leather goods shop two doors away, and tunnelled 40 feet under the Chicken Inn restaurant.
They then used a thermic lance to blast through the three feet of reinforced concrete which formed the unprotected floor of the vault where the deposit boxes were held, spiriting away millions of pounds and a lot of papers that were worth even more had they been blackmailers. Eight tons of rubble was left behind.
Some of the crooks were caught but no one was ever arrested, though the robbery made brief headlines before a mysterious governmental D-Notice prevented further reports.
Roger Donaldson's film, written by the old firm of Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement, speculates why.
The Bank Job makes a pretty good fist of it, too, suggesting that all sorts of things apart from money were in the deposit vaults, including photos of the cavorting royal, records of the money paid by the Soho pornographer to the bent coppers and snaps of the politicos getting themselves chained up and whacked for pleasure.
The robbers, according to the film, were the least guilty of the lot and those captured by an honest member of the Met were later sent off home by MI5 with their loot in exchange for the naughty pictures.
I have no idea whether any of this is true, but can personally vouch for the fact that Soho porno palaces were regularly raided by the Met at the time - and it was usually on the same day of the week that they could confidently be expected.
They used to confiscate a few of the porno movies (doubtless for their own delectation) and, one would imagine, a nice wad of fivers as well.
Those who believe in conspiracy theories will have great fun watching all this, nodding their heads at the way the Establishment protects itself, the way the Met conducted itself in the bad old days and the way there is always more than meets the eye in these headline cases.
They will not, however, feel that the film has much style. It looks like a thriller from the early Seventies itself. The direction is foursquare and practically minded rather than imaginative, the script functional rather than totally convincing and some of the actors look like they're coasting.
In short, this is no Coen Brothers thriller. Their Oscar-winning No Country For Old Men uses highly cinematic means to make its points about fear, loathing and corruption.
The Bank Job is British to the core, without even the glib chutzpah of Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. It can't hold a candle to either Mike Hodges's Get Carter (1971) or John MacKenzie's The Long Good Friday (1979).
The robbers are led by Jason Statham as Terry Leather, a dodgy car dealer, and Saffron Burrows as Martine Love, the belle of an equally dodgy society who found out how to get into the vault.
David Suchet is Lew Vogel, the Soho pornographer paying off the police, and Peter De Jersey is Michael X, the black slum landlord and pseudo political figure who knew he was protected by the fact that snaps of the sexy royal were safely in his deposit box.
Suchet plays Vogel as racked by kidney stones and a man well used to playing off one side against the other.
His is the most distinctive performance, but then again it is a character study he could have done standing on his head. Statham, meanwhile, does his best to suggest a petty crook who is a family man at heart.
In short, this is not a very distinguished film, but it does have a good enough plot to keep you watching and wondering what is the result of good research and what has been constructed by intelligent guesswork. It was a funny old time all right, full of scallywags. Just like today, in fact.
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