True story of a 1970''s London bank heist with major political ramifications. A group of burglars tunnel through to the basement of a bank, but the tunnel almost collapses on them. Their communications with one another, via walkie-talkies and ham radios, are overheard and the police are notified. The police respond but don''t find the robbers because they fail to look in the basement. The robbers steal the contents of the safety deposit boxes which contain compromising photographs and other evidence of wrong-doing by major politicians and business people. Before they can escape, however, their getaway car is stolen and the replacement truck gets stuck in the tunnel until a little boy, passing by the tunnel entrance, suggests that they let the air out of the tires and this helps them escape. After their escape they are tracked by the police as well as the powerful people they have inadvertently robbed.
How could you ask for a better real life story than this? Something like this happening is about as likely as a Brit properly pronouncing his “H’s”. But it did happen and it should have made for an incredible film. I’m not sure it lived up to the story however.
Once again we have a film being horribly marketed. Who saw a trailer for The Bank Job? I heard that Hillary won a few more delegates, I heard the governor of NY was banging a prostitute…what I didn’t hear was anything about The Bank Job. That definitely didn’t help it in its weak sawce 5.9 million dollar opening.
The film wasn’t all bad. The story was good and well told. Especially considering how many characters we are introduced to that play an important role in the film. I did feel like it was a bit lengthy in some parts but I wasn’t ready to hurl a Mountain Dew at the screen because of it. I could have used a few more action sequences but then again it’s a true story so you can’t just add random make believe action whenever you feel it is necessary.
It’s a decent heist movie but in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really stand out much. If you long for a good heist flick toss in the movie Heat and nuke some popcorn.
