An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
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Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
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I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Roger Donaldson.
Cast: Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, Stephen Campbell Moore, Daniel Mays, David Suchet
Description: Shady car dealer Terry thinks he has hit the jackpot when beautiful model Martine invites him to take part in a robbery, targeting the safety deposit boxes in the vault of a Lloyds bank on Baker Street. Terry and his team - Bambas, Dave, Eddie, Kevin and The Major - escape by the skin of their teeth, unaware that the vault contains secret photographs of a member of the Royal Family.
Country: UK. 2008. 111mins
A time for scallywags: Miles Urquhart (Peter Bowles) is a perverted politician drawn into a web of sleaze that takes in a nymphomaniac royal, a Soho pornography baron and a gang of amateur crooks
Planning: The film looks like a thriller from the early Seventies
Theft: Jason Statham (Terry Leather) and Keeley Hawes (Wendy Leather)
This is a good old British family tale about bank robbers, Soho pornographers, bent policemen, sexually perverse public-school politicos and, horror of horrors, a young female royal who likes a bit of an orgy.
All we lack is the Duke of Edinburgh ordering MI5 to assassinate the Archbishop of Canterbury. But we do get Lord Mountbatten charitably calling the sexy royal a mere scallywag.
All this, and even more, is based on a famous bank robbery of 1971 when a posse of amateur thieves got wind of the fact that they could break into Lloyds Bank in Baker Street if they only got into Le Sac, a leather goods shop two doors away, and tunnelled 40 feet under the Chicken Inn restaurant.
They then used a thermic lance to blast through the three feet of reinforced concrete which formed the unprotected floor of the vault where the deposit boxes were held, spiriting away millions of pounds and a lot of papers that were worth even more had they been blackmailers. Eight tons of rubble was left behind.
Some of the crooks were caught but no one was ever arrested, though the robbery made brief headlines before a mysterious governmental D-Notice prevented further reports.
Roger Donaldson's film, written by the old firm of Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement, speculates why.
The Bank Job makes a pretty good fist of it, too, suggesting that all sorts of things apart from money were in the deposit vaults, including photos of the cavorting royal, records of the money paid by the Soho pornographer to the bent coppers and snaps of the politicos getting themselves chained up and whacked for pleasure.
The robbers, according to the film, were the least guilty of the lot and those captured by an honest member of the Met were later sent off home by MI5 with their loot in exchange for the naughty pictures.
I have no idea whether any of this is true, but can personally vouch for the fact that Soho porno palaces were regularly raided by the Met at the time - and it was usually on the same day of the week that they could confidently be expected.
They used to confiscate a few of the porno movies (doubtless for their own delectation) and, one would imagine, a nice wad of fivers as well.
Those who believe in conspiracy theories will have great fun watching all this, nodding their heads at the way the Establishment protects itself, the way the Met conducted itself in the bad old days and the way there is always more than meets the eye in these headline cases.
They will not, however, feel that the film has much style. It looks like a thriller from the early Seventies itself. The direction is foursquare and practically minded rather than imaginative, the script functional rather than totally convincing and some of the actors look like they're coasting.
In short, this is no Coen Brothers thriller. Their Oscar-winning No Country For Old Men uses highly cinematic means to make its points about fear, loathing and corruption.
The Bank Job is British to the core, without even the glib chutzpah of Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. It can't hold a candle to either Mike Hodges's Get Carter (1971) or John MacKenzie's The Long Good Friday (1979).
The robbers are led by Jason Statham as Terry Leather, a dodgy car dealer, and Saffron Burrows as Martine Love, the belle of an equally dodgy society who found out how to get into the vault.
David Suchet is Lew Vogel, the Soho pornographer paying off the police, and Peter De Jersey is Michael X, the black slum landlord and pseudo political figure who knew he was protected by the fact that snaps of the sexy royal were safely in his deposit box.
Suchet plays Vogel as racked by kidney stones and a man well used to playing off one side against the other.
His is the most distinctive performance, but then again it is a character study he could have done standing on his head. Statham, meanwhile, does his best to suggest a petty crook who is a family man at heart.
In short, this is not a very distinguished film, but it does have a good enough plot to keep you watching and wondering what is the result of good research and what has been constructed by intelligent guesswork. It was a funny old time all right, full of scallywags. Just like today, in fact.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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hi,ImMahmoud dalu I won the lottery international FIFA-supported South Africa and the award of $ 2100000 $ U.S. $ I hope you kindly to verify the existence of such award in the bank to send a message I hope you have the presence or absence of this award to Alamil
- Mahmoud, The Palestinian authority
I had to rewind it where it said Princess Margaret in the pictures. If this is not true they wouldn't have been able to say it. Would they? After all she is a Royal.
- Hazel, united states
In the movie Micheal X is supposed to be from Trinidad which is fact, HOWEVER, he sounds they have him sounding like a Jamaican. Additionally, even where the scene is supposedly in Trinidad, everyone around and everything looks Jamaican.. They should have taken the time to do some fact checking and research in this aspect.
- Go, Trinidad and Tobago
Under the present political climate and 30 years secrecy law, can we expect such films to be shown after 30 years, by which time the society would have changed?
- Mafia Rules, London UK
Morning:
11°c
