Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
3/16/08
I love
unsolved historical mysteries, especially when they involve the hint of
government conspiracy. On this side of the Atlantic, I doubt many
people have heard (certainly I hadn't) of the amazing story of the “Walkie
Talkie Robbers” who struck the Baker Street Branch of Lloyd's of London
on September 11, 1971. Tunneling under the vault from a storefront
two buildings away, they made off with millions of pounds and the contents
of over a hundred safe deposit boxes. A ham radio operator picked
up the thieves communicating with their lookout on walkie-talkies and those
recordings, along with the shocking nature of the heist, were big news
for exactly four days. Then, all media coverage ceased: whispers
circulated for years until it was recently confirmed that the British government
issued a D Notice, which allows them to halt media coverage of any story
that might infringe on National Security. So, what was in those boxes
that would inspire such an extreme reaction? The new heist thriller
The
Bank Job mixes speculation, invention, and interviews with “confidential
sources” of writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais to provide a delightfully
decadent answer.
It
all starts with Princess Margaret (Louise Chambers), secretly photographed
having wild sex at a resort. Those photos have found their way into
the possession of Michael X (Peter De Jersey), a London street criminal
who in the late 60's reinvented himself as a civil rights crusader (and
pal of John Lennon) without losing his love of murder and extortion.
Police want to arrest him, but their hands are tied: he's holding
damning evidence against the Royal Family over the country's head!
Ambitious MI5 agent Tim Everett (Richard Lintern) is commissioned to get
those photos, and he hatches a plan to have drug smuggler Martine Love
(Saffron Burrows) recruit a gang of thieves to bust into the bank whose
vault houses the pics so she can escape trial. She seeks out old
friends, led by Terry Leather (Jason Statham) and his pals Kevin (Stephen
Campbell Moore) and Dave (Daniel Mays). Terry's in deep with local
loan sharks and in danger of losing his car dealership. Even though
none of his “gang” (Kevin's a photographer and Dave an adult film actor)
has ever tackled anything of this magnitude, he decides it's time to grab
their piece of the British Dream. Predictably, as they need more
and more specialized skills to pull off the scheme I outlined above, more
and more recruits must be cut in. But once they're in the vault,
they find not only a fortune in cash and jewels, not only those photos
of Margaret, but also damning evidence against all levels of cops and government
officials. And they don't even notice that among the items stuffed
into their bags is a ledger kept by porn king Lew Vogel (David Suchet),
which he'll happily kill them all to retrieve.
I've
been pleasantly surprised to learn how closely The Bank Job sticks
to the public record about the heist as a foundation for its' speculative
flights of fancy. There isn't much here that I wouldn't believe if
it came out (Corrupt cops? Depraved members of Parliament?
Been there, been disillusioned by that), and director Roger Donaldson and
his crew establish a very effective sense of time and place. The
heist is a good movie subject because even if they don't give their booty
to the poor, it's hard to root against working class guys stealing the
already ill-gotten gains of the rich. The film strikes quickly to
contrast the casual debauchery of the Elite with the hard-working family
man Terry. Peter Bowles is pitch-perfect as odious bigwig Miles Urquhart,
who's pulling the conspiratorial strings in part to protect his own brothel-frequenting
ass.
I'm
on the record that Statham is one of the best modern action stars, but
his material (In the Name of the King,
anyone? Anyone?) is rarely up to his skills. Donaldson hedges
his bets by letting him cut loose and kick some butt at the end, but this
is the rare movie that mostly just lets him act, and he's cool as all get-out
(I'm just gonna start calling criminals “villains” from now on, thanks).
Burrows leans heavily and effectively on her own smoky cool, while Moore
and Mays do just the opposite, drawing us in by seeming totally normal
and in over their heads. Suchet and De Jersey work perfectly with
the flow of their material, starting out as criminal buffoons and slowly
revealing lethally different sides. The large cast is filled with
interesting performances in small roles, like Hattie Morahan as a spy who
underestimates Michael X's savagery and Michael Jibson as Eddie, the hapless
lookout.
Donaldson
has made a fair amount of popcorn trash over the years, from Cocktail
to Species, but in recent years he's reinvented himself as a chronicler
of historical tales both major (Thirteen Days) and anecdotal (The
World's Fastest Indian). While The Bank Job contains all
the R-rated bullet points of an 80's action flick (plenty of bare breasts
and vicious violence), he does a great job of making them feel like organic
parts of the world in which his characters live. You could be forgiven
for not even realizing you're watching an action movie until Statham goes
all Transporter on Vogel and his hoods at the end. Clement and La
Frenais do a wonderful job integrating fact, fiction and everything in
between into a story that always feels propelled by its' people rather
than its' plot, and the climactic machinations through which Terry and
his surviving cohorts try to wriggle out of the many traps they've sprung
are pretty clever.
The
Bank Job should delight fans of bank heists, Jason Statham's tough
guy charisma and British conspiracy theories (and really, who doesn't fall
into at least one of those groups?). It's a fun and exciting action
drama for adults, something you shouldn't take for granted these days.
And it'll undoubtedly send a lot of moviegoers plowing through the Internet
looking for the dirt on the Walkie Talkie Robbers and Michael X.
Start with the Wikipedia
article on the movie, filled with links to stories from the British
papers. Just don't tell anybody in Washington about that whole D
Notice thing: soon they'll want some of those for themselves... |
