Eddie Burton: “Money may be your God, but it ain’t mine,”
A blackmailing scheme that leads right to the top, plenty of political tomfoolery, a black militant causing many an issue on the darker side of life, a smut king involved with numerous dirty coppers, and more all revolve around a dynamic robbery in the Roger Donaldson directed film The Bank Job (2008).
Set in London, England circa 1971 and loosely based upon numerous real and rumoured happenings from the time, the main narrative follows Terry Leather (Jason Statham – The Beekeeper; Snatch.), a small time former crook and now used car dealer/garage who is still down on his luck thanks to owing money to the wrong sort of people.
Approached by one of his former femmes, Martine Love (Saffron Burrows), who has a tip on robbing a bank – after all, it’s not too often when you discover that all the alarms on a building will be shut off for an entire weekend, it does not take long for the idea to fester into his brain. . . soon uniting pals Eddie Burton (Michael Jibson) – his newly married employee; old friends Dave Shilling (Daniel Mays) and Kevin Swain (Stephen Campbell Moore); technical expert Bambas (Alki David); and snooty cover Guy Singer (James Faulkner), to help pull off the lucrative but dangerous job.
Yet, unbeknownst to them, Martine has been arm in arm with MI5 agent Tim Evertt (Richard Lintern) for some time. . . but could he simply be using them all as patsies to remove a vital piece of defaming royal information that they need from one of the safety deposit boxes? Likewise, on top of the robbery and the MI5 wrinkle, it also brings along issues with Lew Vogel (David Suchet) – a connected adult entertainment tzar of London, as well as Michael X (Peter De Jersey) – a sort of Malcolm X of the UK.
A near impossible job not even including all of the periphery players encircling the gang from afar, will this ragtag team of criminals be able to pull it off? If so, does that doom them even further? Might it be the spooks or the underworld overlords who are more dangerous in this case?
Thriving thanks to its realistic early seventies setting, props, and costumes, its dynamic intersecting storylines, and a strong central performance from Jason Statham (along with a great number of supporting character actors), it’s nice to see Statham in a movie that doesn’t simply fall within the ‘action’ genre. Melding the entertainment of a crime caper, the drama of real life characters, and the thrills of a job that could go wrong at any second, it has got plenty of suspense, titillation, and enough of an edge to make it a fun one hour and fifty-one minute watch.
Though quasi-successful at the time, The Bank Job deserves to be tracked down by those who haven’t seen it (or have forgotten about it). With its fusion of realism and long rumoured possibilities, one thing we know is true – the quotation that opens up this review was actually captured and recorded on a Ham radio while the real-life robbery was taking place. Lastly, this might be a big surprise for some, but look for Rolling Stones legend Mick Jagger in a cameo as the bank employee in charge of the safety deposit boxes – he’s near unrecognizable. So, bank on this job, you’ll strike pay dirt.