The coveted "based on a true story" stamp of credibility flashes under the humdrum title at the beginning of The Bank Job. The stamp informs viewers that even though bank heists are commonplace in the cinema realm, this one actually happened.
Set in East London in the early '70s, the story focuses on the events surrounding the Baker Street bank robbery, which initially made front page headlines until MI5, a branch of the British military intelligence service, made a D-Notice request that censored all press coverage. Supposedly, the filmmakers relied on clandestine inside sources to accurately present the facts.
The film gets off to a quick start. As the story begins, Terry, played by cool-headed B-movie action star Jason Statham, is offered the heist job by his ex-girlfriend Martine (Saffron Burrows) outside his failing cars-sale warehouse. He accepts.
After the eventual theft is committed, MI5 and other government higher-ups manipulate Terry and his crew of hoodlums in order to get their hands on incriminating photos of Princess Margaret the thieves procured from one particular deposit box.
As far as cunning, deceitful criminal protagonists go, Terry has a recognizable conscience. After his wife shouts at him for his involvement with the robbery and his possible affair with the fibrous femme fatale Martine, he bashfully admits, "I deserve it."
The Bank Job contains many of the requisite occurrences present in most caper films, such as assembling the crew, planning an inconspicuous execution and committing the robbery, which usually has a very positive or very negative result. Films of late -- the Ocean's Eleven trilogy, for instance -- that have tackled this genre have been handled with immense stylistic enhancement and a distorted chronological order.
This isn't the case here. Remaining grounded in reality, The Bank Job is surprisingly straightforward and the heist is traditional, not high-tech.
The gang excavates their way into the bank's vault room by tunneling underground from the basement of an adjoining store. This scene is a staple of the classic to the not-so-classic; the tactic, for example, is employed in both the 1955 original The Ladykillers and the 2004 Coen brothers' inkblot-on-the-resume remake.
Although a handful of the movies within this genre have been forgotten over the years, The Bank Job leaves an impression with the sheer complexity of its various subplots balanced against its rudimentary timeline.
The subplots serve to facilitate the viewer in understanding what's going on, rather than indulging them in an arbitrary, muddled bog of ideas.
Police corruption, MI5 chicanery, deep-rooted extortion and the caper set-up all contribute to maintaining the tense mood, even in slower scenes.
On paper, The Bank Job takes a been-there-done-that concept and finds a way to make it altogether satisfying and at times highly involving. The filmmakers' insertion of an additional layer of substance in place of style benefits and rewards a smart, thinking audience.
The film avoids getting dolled up in excesses of sex and violence, but it does show snippets of each from time to time. The level of actual action is noticeably low until the film's climax, but any self-respecting action fan would appreciate
the wait before Terry's wrath is unleashed.
The aftermath is decidedly unique in its examination of how all interests involved, including Terry's crew, MI5, the police and prostitution kingpins, intersect and diverge in grisly, sadistic ways.
The Bank Job is a smoothly crafted and complex film that meets the expectations of a conventional heist flick but also brings a little something extra to the job.
Grade: B
