The Bank Job
Dir Roger Donaldson, feat Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, Stephen Campbell Moore, David Suchet, Keeley Hawes (R)
By Ruth Hessey
Bank robberies are old school these days, and the hi-tech versions with laser beams, electronic funds, and robbers dressed like ballet dancers just don't pack the same punch as a simple old fashioned hold up. Take a gun, point it at someone and demand the cash. That used to be the best fun you could have in a movie, or a corner store. No one needed to get hurt, the rich were forced to give to the poor.
And this is why The Bank Job is a clever film. Based on real events in 1971, it is at once glamorously retro and analogue nostalgic. This is a caper pulled off in the days before mobile phones, satellite surveillance and impregnable security systems. The robbers, all amateurs, dig a tunnel. They use walkie talkies, and they're almost sprung by a ham radio nut. It's so beautifully simple, and contingent on a string of near misses, that you really don't know what will happen next.
Saffron Burrows (who keeps you anxious wondering when she last had something to eat) has the sort of tall gaunt beauty which the fashions of the 1970s demanded. She swans about in long coats, wide pants and halter necks just like a model. But Martine Love is also the mastermind behind the scam. And she has several ulterior motives, one of which involves Jason Statham (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The Italian Job), who plays Terry, a car mechanic being hassled by thugs to pay some debts.
Terry is in love with his wife, and worried about his young family, but he's seduced by Martine's get rich quick scam, and at various times he's almost seduced by Martine herself. The other robbers brought in on the scheme have no experience either, and are clearly unfit to deal with the disaster which lurks round every corner. And then there is the murky influence of M15 and the British Royal family, not to mention a porn king, a dash of sado-masochism and a black panther. The Bank Job is fun.