adonis98-743-186503 Martine offers Terry a lead on a bank hit on London's Baker Street. She targets a roomful of safe deposit boxes worth millions in cash and jewelry. But Terry and his crew don't realize the boxes also contain a treasure trove of dirty secrets secrets that will thrust them into a deadly web of corruption. The Bank Job is one of Jason Statham's most different films that he has made in the last decade but also one of his best as well. Full of suspense, great acting and twists and turns along the way that fans of heist movies should not miss at all. (10/10) (A+)

inspectors71 Roger Donaldson's sharp, suspenseful, and very human crime drama, based on, apparently, a true story of what some minor criminals find in the safety deposit boxes in a small bank, delivers what is critical for a heist movie to succeed:1. Everyone is a real, flesh and scars human 2. Violence is usually threatened and almost never graphic 3. Decency and degeneracy can walk hand in hand 4. If the good guys win, it's going to be at a terrible costI just saw another Donaldson picture a few months ago, The November Man. Remember how I appreciated the line delivered by Pierce Brosnan to his protégé, something like, "You can either be a human or a taker of human life; you can't be both." The November Man was a more standardized action flick, but the moral choice Brosnan's trainee has to make sends the quality of the movie up 1/2 dozen notches right away.In The Bank Job, Donaldson is able to convey the vulnerability felt by many of the primary and secondary characters. There's real fear on the faces of the guys at MI-5 (or is it MI-6; I never know). Jason Statham (who turns in a darn-good performance here) is torn between benefiting his family or destroying it. I don't know all the other actors, but everyone of them, as I said before, is so real, so smart, craven and foolish. The heart and soul of The Bank Job is in its ability to convince the audience that what they are seeing is plausible, maybe even real. When an up-and-coming spook spots a young woman he sent on an undercover mission in the Caribbean, covered in a shallow grave, he doesn't act tough. He forces back his emotions, and then orders the local authorities to burn the bad guy's house to the ground. If this guy can hang on to his career, he's going to be a holy terror in the British Intelligence community. Except for the usual problem of deciphering Statham's thickened and mumbling accent, and the less-than-a-clear-mix musical soundtrack for 1971, I found nothing to complain about here. If you find The Bank Job at your library, in a bin at Wal-Mart, or on Netflix, I would suggest you drop everything for the evening to watch a fine piece of restrained film-making. One of the message boarders commented that, if this had been made in the US, what made it so good would have died almost instantly. How true.

ianlouisiana By 1971 nobody gave two hoots about who Princess Margaret had sex with. If she'd spent as much time underneath various ne'er - do - wells as had been alleged,the poor old dear could hardly have come up for breath. She slept with the well - endowed John Bindon?Roddy Lewellyn,Peter Sellers..Mustique should have been ankle - deep in condoms...... The preposterous idea that "The Establishment"(what a splendid catch - all term that is) should encourage a team of frankly not overly - bright London crims to do a safety deposit vault in order to get photos of Royal/Commoner action is the wellspring behind this creaky "thriller"that is thirty years beyond it's sell - by date. The simple fact is that if the Security Services wanted to suppress the photos they simply had to serve a "D" notice on the Bank's Governors and walk out with them. All sorts of rumours were prevalent at the time about the real "Baker St. Moles",many set about by themselves. The self styled Michael "X" was a pimp and a violent criminal hiding behind the skirts of his community whilst presenting himself as it's saviour. He was later hanged in Jamaica where his ethnicity was not considered consequential. Without the silly Royal connection,"The Bank Job" must stand on its merits as a "Caper"movie but singularly fails to do so. The usual Brits turn up and do their posh or mockney turns,trouser the cash and go onto better things(or not,as the case may be). Mr Suchet gives a Michael Caine impersonation that entertains for about two minutes but unfortunately lasts rather longer. The Met scarcely covered itself in glory during the Baker St investigation and certain officers were quietly "resigned" in the aftermath of the affair - that much is true,but no real - life villains were "disappeared" or found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge or wherever a favourite subject for conspiracy theorists. The fact of the matter is that it was a crime that read better than it actually turned out. And,in "The Bank Job",it didn't even read that well.

slightlymad22 The Bank Job maybe Jason Statham's best movie (excluding his role in the first Expendables movie) I really enjoyed it it is not your usual Statham movie. Plot In A Paragraph: Based on a true story Martine (Saffron Burrows) offers Terry (Statham) a tip on a foolproof bank job on London's Baker Street branch of Lloyds bank. She targets a roomful of safe deposit boxes worth millions in cash and jewellery. But Terry and his crew don't realise the boxes also contain a lot of dirty secrets - secrets that will endanger the lives of everyone involved. It does get bogged down with too many subplots in its short running time and there are some awful attempt to cockney accents. However these are only a minor flaws in an entertaining movie.In its edition of February 16, 2008 The Daily Mail newspaper reported "The four men caught, charged and convicted of the raid went to jail without ever having their names mentioned in the press, and to this day their identities and the circumstances of their capture remain secret. Even the lengths of their sentences are still shrouded in mystery."