Movie Review: The Bank Job
Not at all like the
Oceans.
Dark. Gritty. London in the
70s.
Some entertaining moments, certainly. But, overall...
Dark. Gritty. London in the 70s.
Jason Statham is the lead man in a ragtag group of childhood friends robbing the Baker Street neighborhood branch of Lloyd's of London. Baker Street, Sir AC Doyle's mythical home for Sherlock Holmes. With a lot of luck, they are able to pull off the job.
Turns out, there are a lot of shady people who use the safe deposit boxes at Lloyd's. And they want their stuff back.
Dark. Gritty. London in the 70s.
There is a torture scene, a kidnapping, several murders. This is not the same kind of story told by Steven Soderbergh in the Danny Ocean movies (which I highly recommend for good fun!). Lots of political intrigue. But there really are no good guys. The lead roles are petty thugs, the really bad guys are bad guys, and all but the one cop are bad guys. No one really wins. Yes, there is the happy ending, spear fishing in the Bahamas, but, really, no one wins.
I went in expecting Danny Ocean in England. That's not what it was.
On a personal note, I did laugh during the credits when I saw that Jason Statham had a driver. If you don't at least chuckle, then you need to see the two Transporter movies, also highly recommended.
The bottom line: The story and plots (because there are several) are well worked together into this mesh of intermingled storytelling. For that, I give it high marks, 7 old school ties out of 10.
Some entertaining moments, certainly. But, overall...
Dark. Gritty. London in the 70s.
Jason Statham is the lead man in a ragtag group of childhood friends robbing the Baker Street neighborhood branch of Lloyd's of London. Baker Street, Sir AC Doyle's mythical home for Sherlock Holmes. With a lot of luck, they are able to pull off the job.
Turns out, there are a lot of shady people who use the safe deposit boxes at Lloyd's. And they want their stuff back.
Dark. Gritty. London in the 70s.
There is a torture scene, a kidnapping, several murders. This is not the same kind of story told by Steven Soderbergh in the Danny Ocean movies (which I highly recommend for good fun!). Lots of political intrigue. But there really are no good guys. The lead roles are petty thugs, the really bad guys are bad guys, and all but the one cop are bad guys. No one really wins. Yes, there is the happy ending, spear fishing in the Bahamas, but, really, no one wins.
I went in expecting Danny Ocean in England. That's not what it was.
On a personal note, I did laugh during the credits when I saw that Jason Statham had a driver. If you don't at least chuckle, then you need to see the two Transporter movies, also highly recommended.
The bottom line: The story and plots (because there are several) are well worked together into this mesh of intermingled storytelling. For that, I give it high marks, 7 old school ties out of 10.
Posted: Sat - March 8, 2008 at 04:45 PM
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Published On: Mar 08, 2008 04:45 PM
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Published On: Mar 08, 2008 04:45 PM