Shawn's The Bank Job Review

2008 Movie #51 - The Bank Job

Well it's finally time to start catching up on the backlog of reviews. I only have a couple more to watch from the past couple of months and as planned, I have to be caught up by the time the summer movies start to roll out.

I actually started to watch this one before it even came out in theatres but only got through about the first 10 minutes of it before I turned it off for whatever reasons. Well almost a month and a half later I finally went back to it and I really have no idea why I waited this long to watch it because it definitely ranks as one of the pleasant surprises of this year so far.

In terms of plot it's a pretty run of the mill caper movie, but it's a really well done caper movie. It's always entertaining and engaging which is pretty much what one looks for in a heist movie. It's nowhere up there with ones like Heat and Ocean's 11, but it's better than ones such as Heist, Thomas Crown Affair (I barely even remember if this one was a heist movie) and definitely better than Ocean's 12....and just the round out the trilogy, i would say it's probably on part with the third Ocean's movie.

It's nice to see Jason Statham in a good movie finally. After all of the crap he's been stuck in lately he was due for something like this. He's a good actor, he's good in this movie and hopefully this trend continues for him...and with Crank 2 and apparently also Transporter 3 on the way, I'm pretty excited about what the man has coming up.

The rest of the cast also does well, although Statham was really the only actor I recognized. Well him and the girl from Deep Blue Sea, at least I think that was her. She also does a good job, well they all do we'll just leave it at that.

There is a lot going on in this movie with a whole lot of different sub-plots and threads running throughout the whole movie. A lot of credit has to be given to this movie because it never feels like too much. Each story, character, etc is focused on with an even amount of attention so that one element isn't put in the forefront while another one goes completely ignored. It's always key that a movie such as this remains easy enough to follow and give this one credit that it never loses the audience even though so there's a ridiculous amount of shit going on in this movie.

I definitely have to recommend this movie and again, I'm kind of upset that I waited this long to sit down and watch it. It's weird how much crap I chose to watch over this one. Oh well, live and learn I guess.

*** 1/2 /5