Choose Your Own Adventure: The Bank Job

I've watched a lot of heist films, but rarely enjoyed doing so. It's a genre that typically glamourizes and glorifies criminals and crime, and that tends to spoil the fun for me. I don't even partake in socially acceptable theft, like pirating music and film, so as slick and well-put together as something like Ocean's Eleven is, I just can't get into its groove. So help me for being a stuffy, uptight, conservative goody-two-shoes; I just don't find gleeful, wanton criminal behaviour with no significant negative consequences to be interesting or fun.

Then again, if I were a true stuffy, uptight, conservative goody-two-shoes, I'd never have watched The Bank Job past its first sixty seconds. The best heist film I've ever seen is, unfortunately, a film I'm not going to recommend to anybody (but I'll tell you about it 'til your ears fall off. Hypocrisy? Irony? You decide!).

The Bank Job (2008) tells a version of the Baker Street Robbery, a 1971 heist involving a big enough haul and small-but-juicy enough amount of public information to propel it to urban legend heights. The film follows a man named Terry (Jason Statham), a part-time thief not making enough in his day job to pay off some crime boss (whether its a loan or protection money is never specified). When his friend and part-time colleague Martine (Saffron Burrows) propositions him with a solid plan to roll a bank, Terry's desire to pay his debts and get out of "the business" prompt his agreement. Also requiring a tidy bit of cash is Terry's desire to permanently leave the country with his wife and kids, so that he'll no longer have to worry about them being harmed by a vengeful mark or colleague.

The heist, however, is not the climax of the film, but the end of the first act. The second and third acts are the story of the aftermath. Unbeknownst to the crew, Martine has been hired by British domestic intelligence (MI-5) to retrieve the contents of a specific safety deposit box belonging to a local criminal. It turns out someone's been blackmailing his way out of prosecution by possessing sexually indecent photos of the Queen's little sister. Upon discovering these, Terry is both livid and terrified of the ramifications of knowing they exist. Also winding up in the crew's possession are a local madame's blackmail photos, mostly of MPs, and a list of dirty cops. At this point, the heist takes a back seat as the story becomes Terry and co. trying to figure out the safest way to dispose of information some people would kill for.

I suppose it would be more appropriate to think of The Bank Job as a drama/thriller rather than a heist film, especially since the heist isn't the story. There's a lot to appreciate in this film. The acting, writing, directing, and use of music are solid. Amongst a cast of British TV regulars, Statham stands out in particular, his performance being so...normal. Terry's reaction upon agreeing to the heist, in spite of its gravity and his reasons for doing it, includes a touch of giddy, incredulous, I-can't-believe-I'm-actually-going-to-rob-a-bank! bubbling up to the surface. It's these small things, present but quiet, that prove Jason Statham to be very good at his job. In a nice touch rarely seen at the movies, Martine's withholding the job's true nature is presented not as conniving greed, but an attempt to protect Terry and the crew from the trouble that accompanies such knowledge. My favourite part of the movie? The fact that it's about fallout, and consequences, and is not in the least bit glamorous or sexy. In a nice bit of foreshadowing that pretty well sets the tone of the movie, the crew ultimately accesses the bank through an underground crypt packed with Black Death leftovers . Overall, The Bank Job is a gritty, severe, often uncomfortable portrait of why crime bears no resemblance to George Clooney's giddy antics in the Ocean movies, and very well-done. From my perspective, it's the best heist film yet.

There is, however, a very big caveat for some viewers. There is more female nudity in the first fifteen minutes of The Bank Job alone (with more to come later) than I've ever seen contained in one movie. It's not entirely unreasonable, as a large portion of the plot involves the practice and consequences of sexual deviance and general depravity, and one of the villains is a pornographer, and the nudity is not presented in a particularly tittilating fashion either - but I know that for many people, the context doesn't matter, only the presence. With a story set in 1971, it's kind of funny and perhaps not coincidental that on-screen nudity is so prevalent in 70's film that it's almost a defining mark of the era. Bonus points for authenticity?

There's also a lot of very uncomfortable and disturbing violence in the film (and I'm okay with that, since murder and torture aren't subjects to be dealt with lightly), but most of it is off-camera or cut away from. Even without reveals, though, it's cringe-inducing - I couldn't even bring myself to watch some of the characters anticipation of what was to come, which I guess says something about their quality of work. The Bank Job is, in every way, "intended for mature audiences. Viewer discretion is advised."

It's one of the most mature films I've seen, in the sense that it could be more harmful than other films to watch without thinking about it what's being said, or having a stronger sense of what you do and don't take away from visuals. Someone could go in thinking that they're going to see a cool film, discover to their disappointment that this one's dark and deep, and only pay attention to (or remember the film for) the incredible nudity. Or go in knowing exactly what they'll get, and still have the same reaction.

As I said, I will not recommend, i.e. tell anyone they should watch this movie. It's excellent, yes, but so's The Big Lebowski, and for similar reasons I don't usually recommend that one either. So.