Smooth criminals

>> British heist flick The Bank Job is a
competent action thriller

by MALCOLM FRASER

When the words “Jason Statham” and “heist movie” are used in combination, I hope a critic can be forgiven if his expectations sink to somewhere below the average daily temperature, or seasonally affected mood, in these dark winter days. With a career ranging from Guy Ritchie films to the so-bad-it’s-hilarious fantasy stinker Dungeon Siege, the guy’s resume is just tragic.

As for the heist genre, it’s gone beyond played-out and into the realm of the simply inexcusable. I was therefore surprised to find that The Bank Job, while it won’t end up on any lists of the best anything, does a decent job by mainstream thriller standards.

Statham plays Terry, a semi-reformed hoodlum who owns a small-time car dealership and needs to make a few bucks to pay off a gambling debt. He’s approached by old flame Martine (Saffron Burrows), who proposes a high-paying heist of a bank’s security deposit boxes. Unbeknownst to Statham, she’s herself been contracted by MI5 agent Tim (Richard Lintern), who wants into a particular box: the one belonging to black-power activist/master criminal Michael X (Peter De Jersey), which contains incriminating sex photos of a Royal Family member.

The plot, apparently based on a true story, gets more complicated from there, involving corrupt cops, the porn industry, political sex scandals, working-class family drama and of course a colourful gang of small-time crooks. At times, it borders on confusing but everything ends up making sense without falling into formula. Director Roger Donaldson, who himself has quite a curious career (everything from early Tom Cruise vehicle Cocktail to volcano action flick Dante’s Peak to Cuban Missile Crisis drama Thirteen Days) ties all the storylines together with solid craftsmanship, keeping the pace snappy without resorting to MTV-style cutting or post-Tarantino cleverness.

It’s no masterpiece—there are stock characters, moments of trite sentimentality and a nasty hint of underhanded racism in the fact that the two black-power activist characters are actually venal scam artists preying on gullible white liberals. But the film is made competently and efficiently, and in the context of this genre, for those of us still traumatized by garbage like Smokin’ Aces, the ability to pull off a satisfactory thriller is a much appreciated relief.

The Bank Job opens this Friday, March 7

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