The Bank Job… a review
You get a group of misfits that have skills crucial to pulling off the job, but whose personalities grate on one another as they attempt to steal some priceless object only to be double crossed at the last second.
Oh I could squeal like a little girl just thinking about it.
The problem of course, is that we’ve seen about 1000 of these films and they’re getting a bit repetitive.
With that in mind I present to you “The Ten Commandments” of making caper movies:
Thou shalt not include a scene in which the thieves bypass the security camera by looping a recording of an empty room into the television monitors. If you do this then I sentence you to be murdered by “The Butler” in a Victorian mansion at the turn of the century.
Thou shalt not squeeze under or around any type of laser guided trip wire unless you have an ass like Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Thou shalt not pierce any sort of water pipe whilst tunneling under the street. Women in white cotton blouses are the only exception.
Thou shalt not induce vomiting or stomach cramps in any of the security guards. I don’t need endless scenes of some guy shitting his lower intestines out. Just shoot him and be done with it.
Thou shalt not dress like a ninja. Nothing says “I’m a criminal” like a guy wearing a balaclava and black pajamas while hanging around a loading dock at 2 am.
Thou shalt not disappear into a crowd of people dressed exactly the same as you. How many times can you rob a bank in the middle of Mardi Gras anyway?
Thou shalt not use equipment that costs more than the GNP of Luxemburg to commit the robbery. If you can afford hydraulics that can lift an entire building up 6 inches, then why the hell are you robbing someone?
Thou shalt not replace the item you’re stealing with a bag of sand. We all know that you’re off by 3 grams anyway.
Thou shalt not transport anyone hidden in the breakfast cart at a swanky hotel. Whenever I order room service I make sure that I have a pointy stick on hand just in case.
Thou shalt not walk side by side in slow motion ESPECIALLY if you’re wearing black suits with skinny ties, (and God help you if I hear “Steerler’s Wheel” on the radio).
So how does “The Bank Job” hold up?
I gotta tell you… I almost wished for a slow motion walking scene just to liven things up.
It plays out like some lame BBC movie of the week and I’ve seen better twists at retirement home jazzercise class.
Terry Leather (I guess Manny Steele was just too obvious) is a low level street thief who’s trying to make an honest living as a mechanic. Alas, poor Miles Long… er… Terry Leather seems to be in trouble with some local loan sharks. One day Terry’s former flame, Martine Love (not quite as good as Felicity Shagwell but we’ll take it) shows up and offers Terry the chance of a lifetime to pull off a bank heist.
Now, the betrayal aspect of the caper movie is a time worn tradition. Sometimes it happens in the first act (The Italian Job) and the rest of the movie is about getting revenge, and sometimes it happens at the very end of the film.
In “The Bank Job”, they tell us right away that Martine is being blackmailed by the British Secret Service to retrieve some pornographic photos that a local hood has of the Royal Family.
Well, so much for intrigue. We know what they’re going to steal and we know why.
Now, in most heist movies the criminal gang is assembled because of their talents. Maybe they need a team of engineers to build a bridge (like in “Kelly’s Heroes”) or they need to recruit a security expert who knows a way to bypass the alarm.
In “The Bank Job”, the only guy they NEED is the one has a torch that can cut through concrete. After that the only other skills that they seem to mention are: “Guy with a huge dick” and “Old guy who rents store next door.”
If you’re looking for an explosives expert, a skilled driver or a master of disguises I have some bad news for you. If however, you just want to see some gratuitous nudity, then this is the film for you!
To recap, the crew is lame , we know what they’re looking for, and we know who is going to betray them.
Please tell me that the bank is difficult to break into!
Oh, you mean more difficult than digging under the street? Heck even that was too much effort for the screenwriter. In fact, once the digging begins to upset the restaurant next door, the criminals conveniently discover an ancient crypt that stretches from their store to the floor of the bank two doors down.
Speaking of convenient, you know what would REALLY help the criminals get back at the Secret Service agents who are going to double cross them? How about MORE pornographic photos, but this time they’re of the spies and their bosses hidden in the bank?
There’s more pornography being stored in this bank than on Ron Jeremy’s MySpace page.
Then, just to add some more frosting to the cake, there’s also a set of accounting books that implicate the police in bribe taking.
Holy crap I like this bank. I wonder what you get for opening a savings account? I’ll bet it’s better than a toaster!
Somewhere in this mess there’s also a subplot about a female spy who goes to Trinidad to root through the local drug kingpin’s desk drawer, which didn’t make any sense to me at all because they know that the photos are in the bank.
They ARE in the bank right? I mean, that’s why you’re getting these guys to tunnel into the bank right?
Imagine how embarrassed you’d be if it turned out that the photos were in a manila folder in the Caribbean the whole time?
Relax, they’re in the bank.
This movie plays out like long division in a grade six math book (except that in MY math book you never knew how it was going to end).
Apparently this is a “True Story” which somehow makes up for it being boring as hell.
Two stars out of five.
At least there was nudity…
