The Bank Job

By: Adam Quigley Posted: March 9, 2008

Overly familiar though it may be, the gritty and fun-filled caper flick The Bank Job is a welcome escape from the seemingly endless array of trash that's been delivered thus far by the early 2008 movie season. It's not necessarily the most memorable or spectacular of affairs, but it's packed with enough amusing characters and old school appeal to warrant, if not a trip to the cinema, at least a rental.

If you're still in need of convincing, it's also got ample helpings of breasts, f-bombs galore, a couple sequences of excessive violence, and a highly gratuitous kung-fu fight scene featuring the always badass Jason Statham hurling a brick into a bad guy's face. (If I had my way, that last one would be a requirement for all of Statham's movies.)

Dubbed as being based on a true story, and we all know how much that's worth nowadays, The Bank Job deals with a bank robbery (shocking, right?) in London during the '70s that's true intentions were never revealed in the media due to a gag order by the government (i.e., a D-Notice).

Balancing fact and fiction in a somewhat jarring manner, the film combines a sense of serious realism against the laidback joviality of its clearly made-up characters. Both elements work fairly well, just not together. Filmmakers like Guy Ritchie have shown how to properly play comedy against solemnity in the past, but The Bank Job hops between two without much rhyme or reason. Ironically, this may have actually benefited the film, as it already feels familiar enough as is without bringing to mind Ritchie's often emulated filmography (or at least his pre-Madonna flicks). It also wisely avoids Ritchie's now effectively worn-out style of hyper-stylistic filmmaking, opting to simply let the story unfold on its own instead of worrying about editing tricks. Good call.

Helping the film stand out on its own further still is its emphasis on the reason for the heist and what occurs because of it, as opposed to just the heist itself. Thank God, too, because the heist is hardly what you'd call "mind-blowing." Nor is the film itself, for that matter. But that's OK. Sometimes a pleasantly forgettable "whatever" movie is just what you need.

3 out of 5