THE BANK JOB

"I've got a job you might be interested in"

Terry (Statham) was a car dealer with a shady past but never really did enough to become one of the main players in London but in 1971 that was all going to change. When Martine (Burrows) walks back into his life, she offers him some information on a bank job that could make them millions. Little does he know that the job is actually a set up by the British Government so Martine can steal a set of compromising photographs of a member of the royal family stored in a safety deposit box by a local black supremacist.

There is one thing that you can say that the British film industry is good at and that is making crime movies but can 'The Bank Job' do enough to steal your interest?

There has been a renaissance for the British crime movie. Hits like 'Sexy Beast', 'Layer Cake', 'Gangster No.1', 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells', 'Snatch' and 'Eastern Promises' has seen a resurgence in the genre and one that has also produced many substandard imitations. It also became the main forte of the British Film Industry, second only to romance comedies starring Hugh Grant but as we head to the end of the 00s, is there enough interest in another crime movie set in the heart of London and surprisingly the answer is yes.

Written by the men behind British TV hits like 'The Likely Lads', 'Porridge' and 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet' and movies like 'The Commitments', 'Still Crazy' and 'Goal!', Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais provide a script that plays on the reality of the story and the London crime syndicates of the 1970s. The mix of historical facts, comedy, profanity and crime works well for the most part but, surprisingly for the dynamic writing duo, the characters are not as well developed as they should be. For writers who have created the likes of 'Fletcher', 'Bob and Terry' and 'Oz', this is the biggest surprise of the movie as most of the characters are stereotypical Londoners and upper class toffs.

Not having much to work with in the way of character development hasn't stopped the cast doing their best. Jason Statham has become Britain's biggest action star but it is easy to forget he started as cheeky, chappy London actor who got his big break in movie just like this and he returns to the genre like he has never been away. Saffron Burrows personifies the upper class totty of choice and Richard Lintern is slightly different MI5. Stephen Campbell Moore, Daniel Mays, James Faulkner and Alki David play acceptable gang members and David Suchet has fun as local mob boss and pornographer Lew Vogel.

'The Bank Job' brings nothing new to the genre but it does provide enough to keep you interested until the final note is stolen. The fact that this is based around real events makes it slightly more watchable but fans of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais will be a little bit disappointed with the real lack of truly likeable characters that pull off the job.

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Snatch

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2008