I might have heard the title somewhere recently, and I may have heard about the lead actor, and it was pretty obvious from the title what the plot would involve, so I watched, from director Roger Donaldson (Dante's Peak, The World's Fastest Indian). Based on a true story, London car dealer and artful dodger Terry Leather (Jason Statham) is having slow business so former model who has a thing for him Martine Love (Deep Blue Sea's Saffron Burrows) makes him an offer. There is a bank on Baker Street that will have its alarms turned off for a couple of weeks, and the plan is to tunnel underneath two buildings opposite to get into the vault and take what's inside. So a team is assembled to carry out the plan, including photographer Kevin Swain (Stephen Campbell Moore), occasional pornographic actor Dave Shilling (Plus One's Daniel Mays), posh conman 'Major' Guy Singer (Bridget Jones's James Faulkner) and mechanic Bambas (Alki David). Inside Guy's gentlemen's clothes shop two doors away the tunnelling begins, obviously there are complaints about the noise from the neighbours due to the loud underground drilling. There is a point while doing this however that the floor caves in while in the tunnel, and that is when they find an underground site full of skeletons, and this makes for an easier passage to the branch of Lloyds. They manage to tunnel into the bank vault while one of them keeps an eye on the street above for any police, and they find many safe deposit boxes full of jewels and cash, as well as one with incriminating photos of a royal having sex with various men. There is a point when it looks like they will be caught in the act by police, as they are using walkie talkies that are being listened to, but they manage to get away with it, and that is when they find out the truth about the robbery. Martine made them rob the bank so that they would bring out the safe deposit box with the photos, that a Trinadadian thug, a high-end bordello owner and pornographer are involved with, to trade for avoiding a prison sentence. Guy and Bambas escaped with their share of the bank vault loot, but they are murdered by unknown persons, and the most threatening person wanting the photos seems to be Soho gangster Lew Vogel (Poirot's David Suchet), who kills Dave and kidnaps friend Eddie Burton (Michael Jibson). In the end Vogel and his criminal cohorts are arrested, Martine says goodbye and the gang members go their separate ways, and Terry is seen with his wife and kids living carefree on a yacht in paradise, the end text says that parts of the robbery investigation still haven't been concluded. Also starring Keeley Hawes as Wendy Leather, Craig Fairbrass as Nick Barton, Colin Salmon as Hakim Jamal, Peter Bowles as Miles Urquart, Peter De Jersey as Michael X, Georgia Taylor as Ingrid Burton, Richard Lintern as Tim Everett, Hattie Morahan as Gale Benson, Rupert Frazer as Lord Drysdale, Gerard Horan as Detective Sergeant Roy Given and Sharon Maughan as Sonia Bern. Statham is less thuggish than usual which makes a difference, the supporting actors get their time too, especially Suchet who is quite sinister in moments, it is an easy to follow story, and if you like caper film then this is reasonable entertainment, alright heist thriller based on a true story. Worth watching!
Review of The Bank Job
