?The Bank Job,? starring Jason Statham (?The Transporter,? ?Snatch,? and just about every other movie with a fit, surly Brit) cannot decide whether it is supposed to be a fun heist movie or a gritty real-life tale of a bank robbery with very vile and violent consequences for all involved. The film does have bright spots ? it can be quite fun at times and compelling at others ? but ultimately the confused nature of the film makes it a somewhat hollow experience.
?The Bank Job? is based on the real 1971 robbery of Lloyds Bank on Bakers Street in London. The true details of the robbery have never been investigated or divulged, as the government issued a D-notice (a gag order) on the incident. The money and contents of the safety deposit boxes have never been recovered.
In the movie, Terry Leather (Statham) is a petty criminal and owner of a failing car dealership. In order to pull himself and his family out of debt, he agrees, upon the goading of his onetime friend and lover Martine Love (Saffron Burrows, ?Reign Over Me?), to one final score ? the big one. Much of what follows is pretty standard for a heist film. Terry assembles a team of his trusted friends and men whose skills will be needed to break into the bank. The group features the standard loveable idiots and requisite old curmudgeon. Unbeknownst to the crew, Martine is actually working for MI-5 in order to steal some risque photos of a royal family member stored within the bank that are being used by slum lord and black power figure Michael X (Peter de Jersey) to blackmail the government. The whole plan quickly unravels with deadly consequences as X and a host of other villains and crooked cops seek the rag-tag bunch looking to recover their treasures.
Where this movie fails most is in its attempt to weave several storylines into the basic structure. Interspersed among scenes of the gang tunneling under a fast-food chicken restaurant, the audience is given glimpses of an underworld full of smut, prostitution, corrupt police officers and social and racial violence. Each of these storylines could be enthralling independently, but the way they are integrated into the main story is often abrupt and poorly conceived.
When worlds of the robbers and the slums collide the movie becomes bipolar. If it wanted comedy and nonchalance a la ?Ocean?s Eleven,? the film falls short. The jokes and fun atmosphere of Terry?s crew soon disappear amidst scenes of inhuman torture and brutal executions. The extremes of violence shown in ?The Bank Job? appear out of place when set against its initial jovial nature. If the movie wants to tell the real tale of the dirty consequences that follow criminal activity, organized crime and corruption, these storylines have been too truncated to allow for the jokes and gags of the heist to have any meaningful exploration. The problem goes beyond the application of comic relief, rather pointing to an inconstancy of tone that detracts from dramatic development within the film. Any treatment given to the very real and very interesting dynamic forces at work in 1971 London is purely superficial. Perhaps with better writing ? bad dialogue spoken with a British accent is still bad dialogue ? the dichotomy of levity and consequence could have been more effectively transmitted.
The performances in this film are forgettable, but at certain moments relieve the fundamental problems of ?The Bank Job.? Statham turns in his usual performance as a sly, stoic and somewhat acrobatic, scruffy-looking workman. Burrows is mostly unbelievable as the love interest turned beleaguered government puppet. The gang as an ensemble produces some quality laughs. The best performance comes from the mostly unknown De Jersey as X, who does an excellent job of portraying a man, though corrupt and violent, driven by his convictions as a central figure in the British Black Power Movement.
The movie is entertaining enough, though you might want to save your money and wait for it to come out on DVD. It?s not that the movie is irredeemably bad, but rather that the movie is simply not good. You can see the semblance of a good film within the myriad of narratives, but it never surfaces. As it stands, ?The Bank Job? is either a comedy that is sometimes inappropriately and jarringly violent or a dramatic telling of a true event that is unfulfilling and inconsequential.
2 stars out of 5
