Small-time London hood Terry (Jason Statham) is trying to make an honest living, working in a run-down garage. But when his old friend Martine (Saffron Burrows) comes to him with a plan to rob a bank -- all the security systems will be turned off for a few days, she says -- he can't resist one last shot at easy money. Of course, Martine's motives aren't as selfless as they seem, and everyone has an agenda of his own.
The Bank Job is a slick piece of entertainment. The most pleasant surprise is that the robbery isn't the climax of the story; the aftermath takes up nearly half of the movie, with various local thugs and lowlifes out to get back their stolen property. For those who prefer to avoid such things, there is a fair amount of violence, and while much of it happens offscreen, it still has a visceral impact, and I found myself wincing more than a few times.
This isn't the sort of movie that calls for Oscar-caliber acting, but Statham and Burrows both do fine work within the limitations of the genre. There's also a solid cast of supporting actors; particularly good are Richard Lintern as a British intelligence agent and David Suchet as "the porn king of Soho." (The cast of minor characters in this movie is huge; kudos to casting director Lucinda Syson for using actors with distinctive enough faces that it's relatively easy to keep track of everyone.)
The story is loosely based on an actual 1971 bank robbery, and I'd love to know how much of what we see is real and how much is the writers' imaginative conception of what might really have been behind the robbery. The climax of the story gets a bit confusing at moments, with perhaps one too many crooks chasing after Terry, but the multiple storylines are tied together very neatly at the end. All told, a worthwhile afternoon at the movies.
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