The Bank Job film review

certificate_15

THE BANK JOB

Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais are Britain's most successful screenwriting duo, with tv credits going back to classic 70s sitcoms such as Porridge, and film scripts including The Commitments and Flushed Away. Their new film is a rather muddled affair however, which wears its period 70s feel so strongly on its sleeve that there is little time for some of the basics you would expect from a thriller, namely pace and tension.

The story is purportedly based on true events in the early part of the decade, when a London bank robbery was successfully carried out but suppressed by the press. Why? Because as well as scarpering with the loot, the robbers inadvertently stole a whole pile of compromising photos involving a 'senior member of the Royal family' (according to the press release). The film posits the theory that there may have been establishment involvement in the whole affair.

But it doesn't really explain this very well. Director Roger Donaldson (whose previous film was the excellent World's Fastest Indian) seems caught up in recreating the glam period, admittedly on an obvious budget, without really involving the audience. There is the odd laugh - some unintentional - but the pulses never really start racing.

Jason 'Whispering' Statham plays the role of unwitting chief robber exactly as you would expect him to, while Saffron Burrows is horribly miscast as an East End moll who may or may not be doublecrossing him. Many of the other members of the cast are familiar from television, and it's hard not to feel the project might have worked better as a tv film.

It all feels like the second, less interesting, half of Sexy Beast, when Ray Winstone and his gang pull off their theft and it's hard to see it attracting younger audience members. Older viewers may enjoy the whiff of nostalgia, but that's about all it has going for it.

Paul Hurley