The Bank Job

By Al Wallace

B movie Star Jason Statham ( as Terry) heads a small group of minor
criminals in London.  He owns a small used car dealership and mostly
is crime free and a family man now. He is being hounded by what
appears to be some loan sharks.  An old girl friend who is captured on
a drug charge has been enticed to put together a group of people in
the criminal world to do a small bank heist,  and they have assurances
that there are no alarms. So she comes back to the old neighborhood,
to solicit Terry and some of the "old gang" to do one more Job.  What
we find out very soon is that the target are the contents of a safety
deposit box, namely some compromising photo's of a British Royal,
that a known drug lord and pimp has been using as blackmail to keep
his operations going.  MI-5 the  British version of the CIA want these
photo's so they can bust this pimp and drug lord.

Based on a true unsolved crime of Lloyd's bank on  Baker Street in
1971, the crime was never solved and a few days after the crime it
gets  a D-notice and that is the last we hear of it until this movie.
At least one character is fictional for sure , that of Martine the old
girlfriend.  The producers have one inside source, a certain George
McIndoe who gets a producer credit on this film.  The Royal is alleged
to be Margaret who would have been 41 in 1971.

If it was that simple it would have still succeeded as a OK film.
Although it won't get on any A list, it is a solid B plus movie.

What makes it a very entertaining film is the fact that many other
scoundrels, pimps, madams also use the same bank to hide cash, jewels,
photos, and documents and in the source of the robbery the crooks
seize a lot of these and that leads to more complications in the plot
but leads to a very enterprising deal with crooks and MI-5 so Terry
can bargain his way out this mess he is caught up in.  Not all turns
out 100% for the all the robbers, MI-5 or the police,  certainly not
for  the two pimps and crooks behind most of the trouble, and finally
for the victims of the of the robbery, the safety box holders, they
lose everything! The movie although fictionalized is entertaining and
not a shoot-um up B- movie chase thing with a lot of special effects.
Decidedly a more European flare type movie, and the plot seems
plausible and at times humorous for all the stupid mistakes the
thieves make even though they finally do get away from the bank in one
piece.

 The only negative is the subject matter of the criminal underworld
and the perversions of people and their sex habits. As such it is
rated R.  In all fairness there is some nudity and a few sex scenes
which are very brief and mostly in the very beginning of the movie to
set the stage of the type of people who are the main players and the
world as they see it and work in it. The real movie is about these
characters and the robbery and the complications from it. I think the
attraction to this movie for a lot of people is the fact that people
fantasy what it would be like to do some of these hedonistic selfish
pleasure seeking acts in life but because of a morality and some basic
common sense we have established for ourselves, we discipline
ourselves not to participate. I have to admit I felt a little like a
voyeur after exiting the film but not until I had time to think about
what I just "witnessed".

The timing couldn't be more poignant with the sex scandal going on in
the Spitzer case.  Even today I see offers in the news for the girl (
prostitute) in the Spitzer case is being offered 6 figures for
interviews and rags like penthouse and hustle want her to pose nude.
At the end of the day when no one is watching she'll have to reconcile
her life's choices and their won't be any cameras or magazine offers
when that day comes .