In 1971, London experienced one of the biggest bank heists ever successfully pulled off. No arrests were ever made in the case and none of the money was ever recovered. What’s most amazing about this story is that because of gag orders, it’s never been told, until now. “The Bank Job” is a crime thriller you don’t want to miss.
Lloyds Bank on Bakers Street in London was the financial home of some of the most prominent people in the area. From government officials down to the strip club owners, if they had anything worth hiding, they kept it in a safety deposit box at that bank.

Jason Statham plays Terry, a car salesman whose business is failing. When we first meet him, debt collectors are at his garage and they’re damaging some of his cars because he owes them money. As soon as they disappear, his old model friend Martine (Saffron Burrows) appears and they agree to meet at a bar to discuss some unclassified business.

Once at the bar, she lets him in on a secret: her boyfriend told her about a bank that had been having some issues with their security system. As a result, they would be deactivating their alarms for a week while new ones are put in. This would give them more than enough time to rob the place without ever getting caught.

Although Terry wasn’t one that you would exactly call “innocent,” over time he had become a family man and had never attempted a crime of that magnitude before. This doesn’t deter him, though. Instead, he enlists the help of some of his petty criminal friends and the bank heist begins.
Given the title, you would think that the whole movie is basically a get-rich scheme that is bound to fail, however, as you watch, you realize that the robbery is just the foundation and the actual story is how far people will go to keep a secret. Once you see what the city’s big wigs have hidden in their safety deposit boxes, you realize that they are the biggest criminals of them all.

This is a movie that is heavily injected with sex, sometimes more resembling a low-budget porn film than a crime thriller. In fact, it even goes so far as to open up with a threesome scene involving a member of the royal family which may be awkward for some viewers. While at times it can be a bit much, it plays a necessary role in the film, though the director, Roger Donaldson, could have found a more tasteful way to get the same message across.

If you can look past all the nudity, “The Bank Job” is a pretty good movie. It is not as action-packed as some might expect, but the story itself is
one worth watching.

3 out of 4 stars