From the March 7 Oregonian....
"The Bank Job" purports to tell the real story behind a mysterious 1971 London robbery: A team of criminals tunneled into a Baker Street bank vault and stole millions -- but a government crackdown silenced investigation and reporting of the crime "for reasons of national security."
Director Roger Donaldson ("No Way Out") and his screenwriters claim that insiders are helping them finally tell the whole story -- i.e., that British intelligence hired low-level crooks to retrieve a safe-deposit box full of blackmail photos.
I have no idea how accurate that "whole story" is, but "The Bank Job" does a plausible, unpretentious and entertaining job of telling it. The movie gets off to a rough start, taking too long to bring story threads and characters together. But once the heist is underway -- and the crew's leader (Jason Statham) finds himself juggling violent demands from MI5, sleaze merchants and corrupt cops -- Donaldson does a workmanlike job dialing up the suspense.
One doesn't want to oversell the film (you could catch it on DVD and regret nothing), but frankly, in a marketplace that tends toward cranked-up action thrills, it's just nice to watch an un-flashy, level-headed crime movie aimed at actual grown-ups.
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B-minus; 111 minutes, rated R.
'The Bank Job' (The Oregonian, March 7, 2008)
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