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Click photo for trailer/Bank Job: |
Royal scandal adds interest to bank withdrawal
THE BANK JOB
Directed by ROGER DONALDSON
Certificate 15
THE target is the Baker Street branch of Lloyds bank.
The date is 1970. In the vaults are safety boxes worth millions. And for one week only the alarms will be switched off while a new system is installed, because the Tube trains keep triggering the old one.
The place is ripe for robbery – but that’s just the start of it.
Car dealer Terry (Jason Statham) is drawn into a daring plan by old flame Martine (Saffron Burrows) with the promise of enough riches to set him up for life.
What she doesn’t tell him is that there are compromising photographs of “a British royal” in strong-box 118, pictures snatched on the island of Mustique, and explicit enough to strike at the very heart of the establishment.
No prizes for guessing who it is. Although Princess Margaret’s name is never actually mentioned, one film company executive reminded me this week: “There weren’t that many dark-haired princesses cavorting in the Caribbean at that time.”
This is the intriguing premise put forward by the distinguished pairing of old hands Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, whose complex screenplay “inspired by true events” treads a dangerous tightrope between fact and surmise – and against all the odds somehow pulls it off to make a compelling thriller. The spooks of MI5 want those photos, and they’ll use all the dirty tricks in the book to get them, plus a few that haven’t even been written. The result is a cracking old-style bank heist (screaming police vans, wailing sirens) that will take you to the edge of your seat, with added tension as the robbers become the victims, falling foul of police corruption, hunted by shadowy assassins and at the mercy of a violent criminal mob led by porn king David Suchet.
The five-strong gang find themselves up against sinister forces, and react like rabbits caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. One by one they’re wiped out.
Director Roger Donaldson takes us on a crooks’ tour of nightclubs, strip joints and brothels, adding a few naughty bits from peers of the realm who should know better, as they indulge in S and M sessions with a leather-clad dominatrix (Keeley Hawes) who seems to know them all by their Christian names and has a camera clicking behind the mirror as her personal insurance.
The A-list acting is as flawless as the diamonds hidden away in the vaults, and it is truly refreshing to find home-grown talent let off the leash to deliver its best work. Suchet radiates authority as the Soho crime boss, but the film belongs to Jason Statham, confirming his status as one of our most dynamic actors. Surely he’s now only a step away from true international stardom.
Click here for Bank Job trailer |
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