The Bank
Job is based on a true heist. Of course “based on” means that there is a
significant amount of truth in it with some imagination to fill in the gaps
thrown in. This is the story of a group of petty criminals (the leader of the
gang being, as always, Jason Statham) who are handed the opportunity of the
bank job of a lifetime by an acquaintance (Saffron Burrows). The idea is to
tunnel into the bank from the empty shop that they have leased almost next door
and empty out the safety deposit boxes. This is, of course, a brilliant
opportunity to get rich quick for the friends because, as the acquaintance
points out, a lot of people hide compromising stuff in there. They may not even
want to risk reporting it stolen. The friends think about it for a minute, and
then pounce on the idea. But there are complications. First of all, the
acquaintance is not as innocent as she may have first seemed; she is acting on
the part of MI5 (or is it 6??) because there are some VERY compromising
pictures of VERY important people that need to be got back NOW. Secondly, like we said, there indeed is
compromising material in the bank, put there by rather unpleasant people. And
while it is true that they will never report it missing, this does NOT mean
they will not come after it themselves... Have our friends finally bitten off
more than they can chew? Will this heist actually turn out to be (literally)
the last thing they ever do? You’ll have to watch and find out.
Now, I did
a bit of research on this one as I jotted down my thoughts and considerations. First
of all, the heist bit, as far as we can ascertain, is spot on. Down to the
details. It occurred in 1971 and there was, according to one website, actual talk
of compromising photos being found but of whom they were and how they
compromised them remains a mystery to this day. I will not go into the details
of the robbery as yet seeing as you haven’t watched it yet (probably) but I
found it especially amusing to find out that the “discovery of the walkie
talkies” as it were was also spot on the money. Nothing as queer as folk, eh? All other connections (including “the photos”
and the connections to the intelligence services) are more a matter of
speculation but still, stranger things have happened in life…
The film
itself is about as British as they come. Not surprising since, it turns out, it
was written by the co-creators of British classics like “The Likely Lads” and “Porridge”
(I apologise if that means nothing to you, but Porridge is one of my favourite
sit-coms and I had to give it a plug). The humour is British, the characters are
VERY British and well, it’s a 1970’s period film to boot. Now, this is my
filmic equivalent of chocolate cake with chocolate-fudge sauce (and if, like my
mother, you hate chocolate, I mean this as a compliment). But if it isn’t
yours, I have to add that the combination of extraordinary real life events and
some really creative writing and directing has meant that this is one heist
movie you will NOT see coming. The plot twists come left and right when you
least expect them and the characters are so charming, you end up rooting for
them without quite understanding what happened. I mean, I started watching this
after a very tiring shift, just to unwind for half an hour with every intention
of leaving it half-way and going to bed early. I ended up watching the whole
two hours and completely upsetting my own sleep patterns for a week. Totally
worth it.
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