The Bank Job
DIR: Roger Donaldson • WRI: Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais • PRO: Steve Chasman, Charles Roven • DOP: Michael Coulter • ED: John Gilbert • DES: Gavin Bocquet • CAST: Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, Stephen Campbell Moore

The Bank Job stars the always dependable Jason Statham as the owner of a garage/used car dealership, who has debts and an apparent, but unspecified, criminal past. When Saffron Burrows, an old neighbourhood friend (and potential squeeze), walks back into his life, she talks him into robbing a bank. Unbeknownst to him, she’s working on behalf of a man from MI5 or MI6 (As is stated in the film, it’s hard to tell them apart) trying to retrieve some compromising photos of a certain royal personage. These photos are being used by a Black Power Activist/drug dealer/pimp calling himself Michael X to blackmail the government into keeping him out of prison. Also in the bank’s vault is a box of incriminating photos of numerous MPs and a ledger belonging to David Suchet (very good as a kingpin of the sex industry), that contains lists of corrupt policemen on his payroll. 

The story is told in the style you often get with this type of film: the camera moving about all over the place, musical stings coming in at the usual moments. There’s a bit of non-linear storytelling early on, but then they apparently decided not to bother, and the rest is in chronological order. There are some nice moments, like when the robbers are digging a tunnel and accidentally fall into a mass grave from the black plague. It has a healthy amount of both darkness and humour, though the dialogue is clunky in places (or it may be the acting). In one of the film’s weaker moments, we see loads of shots of boxes being opened in bank’s vault, accompanied by lines like ‘Look at this’ and ‘Look at all this cash!’

It’s written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who have been somewhat less successful with film than they’ve been with TV (in a collaboration spanning from Porridge to Across the Universe), and it’s directed by Roger Donaldson, the Australian-born director of Dante’s Peak, Thirteen Days and The World’s Fastest Indian.   

The film is based on the true story of a 1971 Baker Street bank robbery, which was prevented from being told for over thirty years because of a government gagging order. It was one of the biggest robberies in British history, but no arrests were ever made and the money was never recovered. It retains a certain bite from being based on real events, including a potential scandal somewhat reminiscent of the recent attempt to blackmail the British royal family. However, if it weren’t based on a true story, it would be easier to dismiss. It’s an enjoyable enough movie, nicely plotted and well made, but nothing especially new.

Tim Hanan
(Read biog here)

Rated 15A (see IFCO website for details)
The Bank Job is released on 29th February 2008
The Bank Job – Official website