Review: The Bank Job

Inspired by a real-life robbery in the 70s, Jason Statham stars as a former ne’er do well, now a family man and garage owner, though in debt to a loan shark, currently. Waltzing back into his life is former flame Saffron Burrows, with a job offer: A heist gig, on short notice to rob the safety deposit vault of a bank on Baker Street, London, full of cash and jewellery. What’s really going on unbeknownst to Statham is that Burrows is sleeping with an MI5 agent (Richard Lintern) who wants Burrows to find some disreputable types to break in, so that he can get his mitts on some seriously kinky photos of Princess Margaret (!) and certain politicians, that blackmailers are holding over the government. Actually the politicians are worried because a certain local Madame also has a different deposit box at the bank with incriminating evidence. In addition to his usual crew, Statham hires a dapper con man (James Faulkner’s ‘Major’), as well as an experienced tunneller (Alki David). Meanwhile, Statham’s wife (Keeley Hawes) waits at home, assuming her husband is fooling about with Burrows. Other figures caught up in the mix are a sleazy porn king (David Suchet), and a couple of phony Trinidadian Black Panthers (Peter De Jersey and Colin Salmon), who are the blackmailers (and more drug dealers than revolutionaries).

 

I like a good heist film, and if you don’t take the ‘based on a true story’ tag too seriously, this 2008 heist film from veteran Aussie director Roger Donaldson (“Smash Palace”, “No Way Out”, “Cocktail”) is a really entertaining yarn. That doesn’t surprise me since the screenplay comes from the reliable pairing of Dick Clement and Ian Lafrenais (“The Commitments”, “Vice Versa”, the underrated “Water”), whose earlier “The Jokers” was an amusing comedy-caper. It probably scores really high on the bullshit meter (facts are hazy, given the supposedly sensitive nature of the case to national security), but I was shocked that they actually named Princess Margaret in the film, whilst other characters’ names were changed to ‘protect the guilty’. Whether it sticks close to fact or not, it’s a bloody barmy heist plot, and entertainingly so. If even some of this really happened, it’s goddamn extraordinary.

 

I wasn’t entirely enamoured with the Jamaican Malcolm X rip-off nor the unconvincing performance by Colin Salmon as his cohort Hakeem Jamal. Those embarrassingly clichéd characters stuck out like to big-arse sore thumbs, and are the only element that don’t convince (despite being among the more known to be factual elements in the film, go figure!) in an otherwise cool film with fine 70s detail, including the soundtrack.

 

Statham is Statham, but in pretty good form here, and Saffron Burrows has a glamorous supermodel vibe about her here that is magnetic. She’s definitely well-cast as a possible femme fatale. David Suchet is rock-solid as a sleazy pornographer, and James Faulkner is especially fine as The Major. The film somewhat reminds me of the 60s heist film “The Day They Robbed the Bank of England”, but much, much better. Give it a go if you like your heist films, this is a good one.

 

Rating: B-