Poll Position: The Bank Job

We gave you folks 4 Jason Statham movies and you chose “The Bank Job”. I was glad this won, I had my eye on it for a while and this just gives me the excuse to go watch it. It does have the awesome Statham, who I am a huge fan of (thanks partly to the Transporter series). I went into this movie expecting a sweet action movie with a sort of Ocean’s Eleven feeling. Hit the jump to see my surprise.

So this movie is another bank vault heist movie, sort of but not really like Ocean’s Eleven, that takes place in London, England. The team is led by Terry Leather (Statham) to break-in during the short time they have when the security of the vault is weak. Martine Love (Saffron Burrows) brings the scheme up to Terry, giving him all the details. Little does Terry know that Martine is actually forced into this by the British Secret Service (Bond, James not included). But the vault they break into has safe-deposit boxes owned by a Trini thug, an owner of a brothel and a pornographer. Everyone is after it all for the same reason, to keep their butts out of jail. Whereas the team is after it only for themselves, but the Secret Service needs a specific item in the vault. And that is why Martine is setting this all up, because if it all goes wrong, it doesn’t go back to the government.

Terry the car salesman. Will kick ass for money.

Right off the bat, this movie feels really fast paced. The scenes make dramatic leaps from one to another, but I sort of liked that. There is no slow paced filler scenes I needed to sit through, it got me to the point and showed me everything along the way. And because of the fast pace of the movie, I never felt bored. And the fight scenes with Terry were a typical Statham fight, no complaints because it was great.

But this is where I address my first complaint: from what I remember there was only one fight scene with Terry. But that wasn’t the only flaw in this movie, it comes from the characters. I never gave a damn about them; they were just minions to Terry in my eyes. And when a few of them were being tortured, even though I should have, I didn’t feel bad for them. And last thing that bugged me, not sure why it did, why do both the Trini thugs have Jamaican accents and filled with Jamaican culture? You think it would be fine if I said the English liked Haggis and the Americans like communism? I’d be hanged by now.

A couple members of the team with Terry and Ms. Love

Though the flaws really didn’t hurt the movie too much, I did like the drama, the plot and the general feel of the movie. And as a thriller, my needs of being thrilled were all met and I was pleased. I did miss the absence of action though I was not terribly disappointed. The lame love chemistry between Terry and Martine should have been dropped. Felt forced and unneeded. As a Statham fan I liked this movie a lot, and would totally want others to watch this movie.