2008 Woodie Awards
"Bank Job" doesn't live up to potential
Jason Grissom
Issue date: 3/20/08 Section: Features
Sometimes reality is stranger than anything a writer can dream up.
For example, in 1971 a gang of thieves equipped with walkie-talkies bored a tunnel into the safe deposit box room of Lloyds Banks in London, a robbery that was so similar to a number of heist-movie plots that it has been begging for its own film adaptation. However, taking reality and translating it into a compelling film isn't always an easy proposition and, in the case of "The Bank Job," can produce mixed results.
"The Bank Job" hobbles out of the gate by introducing us to something like seven separate yet intersecting stories in an incredibly disjointed fashion, complete with jumps in time to further confuse the audience.
A drug-dealing pimp/black revolutionary named Michael X (Peter de Jersey) is skirting arrest by blackmailing the British government with pictures of naked royalty engaging in most un-royal behavior. Meanwhile, an upscale brothel is taking similarly compromising photos of high-ranking government officials for much the same purpose. Meanwhile, some branch of the British secret service is hatching a plan to covertly snatch these photos from their respective safe-deposit boxes using petty thugs and, at the same time, planting a mole in Michael X's circle to destroy any copies. Meanwhile, a model with a coke habit and an absurd number of convenient connections in both the government and the criminal underground is tapped to employ the aforementioned thugs to pull off the black-ops bank job. Meanwhile… well, you get the idea.
It's only after the audience is dragged through a myriad of different plot paths that the movie is finally allowed to begin-almost 20 minutes in and without a hint of forward momentum.
Jason Statham ("Crank") as Terry Leather must then assemble the standard crew of specialist thieves and pull off a bank heist like no other amidst a web of knotted stories and motivations.
Few films that claim to be "based on a true story" do more than give lip service to the actual events, but, in the case of "The Bank Job," accuracy seemed to be a paramount concern for writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Names, locations and events surrounding the life of Michael X and the actual 1971 Baker Street bank robbery are dead accurate. For example, one early scene depicts Michael X leading a white slumlord named Marvin Brown (Mark Phoenix) around by a slave collar and chain exactly as he did to the real life Mr. Brown. Even shops that appear in the film are the same that were present during the actual robbery.
For example, in 1971 a gang of thieves equipped with walkie-talkies bored a tunnel into the safe deposit box room of Lloyds Banks in London, a robbery that was so similar to a number of heist-movie plots that it has been begging for its own film adaptation. However, taking reality and translating it into a compelling film isn't always an easy proposition and, in the case of "The Bank Job," can produce mixed results.
"The Bank Job" hobbles out of the gate by introducing us to something like seven separate yet intersecting stories in an incredibly disjointed fashion, complete with jumps in time to further confuse the audience.
A drug-dealing pimp/black revolutionary named Michael X (Peter de Jersey) is skirting arrest by blackmailing the British government with pictures of naked royalty engaging in most un-royal behavior. Meanwhile, an upscale brothel is taking similarly compromising photos of high-ranking government officials for much the same purpose. Meanwhile, some branch of the British secret service is hatching a plan to covertly snatch these photos from their respective safe-deposit boxes using petty thugs and, at the same time, planting a mole in Michael X's circle to destroy any copies. Meanwhile, a model with a coke habit and an absurd number of convenient connections in both the government and the criminal underground is tapped to employ the aforementioned thugs to pull off the black-ops bank job. Meanwhile… well, you get the idea.
It's only after the audience is dragged through a myriad of different plot paths that the movie is finally allowed to begin-almost 20 minutes in and without a hint of forward momentum.
Jason Statham ("Crank") as Terry Leather must then assemble the standard crew of specialist thieves and pull off a bank heist like no other amidst a web of knotted stories and motivations.
Few films that claim to be "based on a true story" do more than give lip service to the actual events, but, in the case of "The Bank Job," accuracy seemed to be a paramount concern for writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Names, locations and events surrounding the life of Michael X and the actual 1971 Baker Street bank robbery are dead accurate. For example, one early scene depicts Michael X leading a white slumlord named Marvin Brown (Mark Phoenix) around by a slave collar and chain exactly as he did to the real life Mr. Brown. Even shops that appear in the film are the same that were present during the actual robbery.
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