four and a half stars

Reviewed by Daniel E. Jennis

Reminiscent of the classic thrillers of the 1970’s in its superior execution, “The Bank Job” is a riveting jolt of a film. With perfect pacing and a taught yet imaginative storyline, this movie is not to be missed.

Based very loosely on a true story, “The Bank Job” stars Jason Statham as Terry Leather, a small-time hood who decides to rob a bank in order to escape the drudgeries of middle-class life in England. While Terry thinks the heist is a simple bank robbery, there is a lot more to the plan then meets the eye. Terry’s ex-flame, Martine, is the person who orchestrates the crime, and it seems that she has ulterior motives that don’t involve diamonds and cash.

Apparently, the bank that Terry and his low-life friends are supposed to rob contains some buried secrets that would certainly embarrass England’s socialites if they ever were to surface. Thus, even if the job goes smoothly, the subsequent fallout involving the stolen materials may be what sends the robbers to an early grave.

The great thing about this film’s script is that there is this no point in time in which a scene is wasted, or merely plastered on-screen for aesthetic value. The running time is slightly less than two hours, but after watching this movie, you feel like you have been in the theater for closer to three hours. The plot is fairly complicated, and there are a lot of secondary characters and plot lines, but everything that you see in a clip is later used as part of the story arch. As a result, you get a lot of intense characterization and blindingly fast narrative progression that helps to propel the explosive finale.

Director Roger Donaldson does an admirable job of holding together a myriad of filmic elements within the context of a very complicated action film. His revelation of plot details, done subtly but clearly, does a fine job of cuing audiences into the story without insulting their intelligence. Moreover, he also makes sure that “The Bank Job” does not become just another turbo charged action vehicle starring Jason Statham. His restraint with direct violence is timely; the lack of confrontation in the film makes the limited gore and fighting that much more intense.

It is really difficult to make a smart action movie that is not reliant on gadgetry and deception. “The Bank Job” is a superb thriller that strikes the perfect balance between vibrant storytelling and straightforward direction, and therefore succeeds where so many other recent films have failed.