An unconventional ‘Job’
Leave it to a trio of crafty veterans to pull a fast one with “The Bank Job,” a lively heist drama set in early 1970s London and inspired by an incredibly strange true story. Longtime screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, whose eclectic resume includes “Across the Universe,” “Flushed Away” and decades of U.K. television, have woven a masterful narrative full of odd twists and dark humor from which Australian director Roger Donaldson and a prime cast mine plum characters and a tight plot to satisfying effect.
The film gets off to a shaky start, leaping ahead from an orgy in the Caribbean in 1970 to East London a year later before backpedaling three weeks, all the while introducing a dizzying number of characters. Once the filmmakers have us reeling (and fearing yet another film with a chronology fractured for the sake of novelty), things settle into a more linear storyline with familiar but soon to be dashed caper elements falling into place.
Jason Statham stars as Terry, an auto dealer with unsavory creditors and a past that skirts the demimonde. An old friend from the neighborhood, Martine, an ex-model played by Saffron Burrows, tries to interest him in a scheme to rob a bank vault while withholding vital information about the particulars.
Itching for a big score, Terry rounds up his closest mates, Kevin (Stephen Campbell Moore) and Dave (Daniel Mays), and a couple of ringers, the “Major” (James Faulkner) and Bambas (Alki David). The group of essentially amateur crooks then plots to knock over a Lloyds Bank branch on Baker Street by tunneling in from a nearby store.
While the movie, shot by director of photography Mick Coulter and designed by Gavin Bocquet, looks convincingly like a film from the era in which it’s set, it earns its distinctiveness from an almost ridiculous series of fortuitous mishaps that befall our criminal “heroes.”
Unknowingly embroiled in a plot that involves a Black Power leader from Trinidad (Peter de Jersey), an MI5 (or is it 6?) agent (Richard Lintern) and his superiors, corrupt police, a porn king (David Suchet), members of Parliament and naughty photos of a member of the royal family, Terry and his team are forced to play every side against the middle.
The film dawdles at times. but for the most part Donaldson keeps just the right amount of tension present in each scene.
The real fun comes as nearly every genre convention unravels in one clever way or another.
--
--
“The Bank Job.” MPAA rating: R for sexual content, nudity, violence and language. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes. In general release.
Only good movies
Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
