The most dangerous lies are those that are based on kernels of truth. This is why I cringe whenever I see the ominous words 'based on a true story' advertising a film. The Bank Job is the fictionalized story of the walkie-talkie robbery that took place in London in 1971. A small team of Cockney lads, existing on the margins of criminal milieu, successfully robbed the safety box vault of a posh branch of Lloyd's Bank and, on the face of it, got away with most of the proceeds. The film uses some of the facts (the crew was indeed spotted by a ham radio operator, only a handful of safety box owners made any claims) and lots of gossip (the rumour was that one of the safety boxes contained naughty exploits of a royal princess, another implicated a cross-dressing Lord Mountbatten) , then adds some of its own inventions: MI5, or was it MI6, staged the whole operation to recover the pictures and there was also a ledger detailing payoffs to crooked police by a porn king (David Suchet, unfairly looking like the late Ronnie Corbett). Jason Statham, as Terry the leader of the crew, does his Jason Statham act and the rest of the cast turns up to give reliable performances. The whole film works in its contrived and rushed way, but it is much less than what it should have been. The look of the film tries to emulate the 1970s heist flicks but the director (Roger Donaldson) is not sure whether he wants to make a Boulting Brothers style heist romp or a more grungy Brit gangster film. Light-hearted scenes suddenly give way to brutal torture of likable characters, farcical asides lead to serious exchanges. The look of the film, although generally true to the era, sometimes appears sloppy or rushed (underground signs, for example, look distractingly modern).
It is an old-fashioned script with an old-fashioned structure. The use of real names for dead characters, with all the implications on their reputation and on their families, is a nasty element in the film, considering that it is largely based on gossip and innuendo, and it sits uncomfortably with the would-be comedy of bumbling crooks, spooks and coppers.
It is an old-fashioned script with an old-fashioned structure. The use of real names for dead characters, with all the implications on their reputation and on their families, is a nasty element in the film, considering that it is largely based on gossip and innuendo, and it sits uncomfortably with the would-be comedy of bumbling crooks, spooks and coppers.