Movie Review - 'The Bank Job'

The Bank Job

Starring Jason Statham and Saffron Burrows
Directed by Roger Donaldson
Rated R

Movies have a longer tradition with heists than anything else: The first narrative film was The Great Train Robbery in 1903. It was roughly ten minutes long and featured the very first location shooting and stunts in cinema.

And in the intervening century, not much has changed, frankly. We kind of root for the bad guys, because the bank robbers are almost always beholden to someone else or are being chased by crooked cops. And we just love the thought of robbing a bank. But even though there have been some entertaining bank robbery movies since, and even some damned good films, each heist movie follows a 105-year-old blueprint.

While The Bank Job doesn’t quite clear its highest hurdles, it is, for the most part, an efficient, entertaining potboiler that keeps you interested in its bank robbery. What makes it memorable is that the film is based on an actual bank robbery, the famous Baker Street Robbery of 1971, in which a crew of small time hoods broke into a bank’s safe deposit box vault from underneath the structure and made away with the modern equivalent of nearly $10 million.

But the loot isn’t even the story here. It’s what the crooks really obtained – and who they swiped it for – that is the movie’s boldest wrinkle.

The film stars Jason Statham as a cash-strapped mechanic with creditors breathing down his neck who, needing a big payoff quick, signs on with a mysterious woman from his past (Saffron Burrows), to take part in what became one of England’s most sensational crimes. They enlist a group of amateurs and low level con men to help them pull off the heist, which is frankly the least fascinating part of The Bank Job, because we’ve seen that stuff hundreds of times.

What gets our attention besides the terrific setup is what happens after Statham and company get the money. How do bank robbers get away with it (and no, we’re not giving away an ending here; the bank robbery wouldn’t be very famous if the culprits were nabbed, right?) and what do those behind the robbery do once they secure what they’re looking for?

Statham has never been reliable outside of pure action movies. He shows a greater depth here and more intelligence, relying on a good script and a quality ensemble instead of his own physicality. Outside of his other famous heist capers – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and maybe The Italian Job – this is probably his best movie. However, if your four best movies are all chips off the oldest block in film, maybe you should vary it up a bit.

But for these two hours, at least, we don’t mind.