12/03/2008 THE BANK JOB So, babeluvers, it’s London in 1971. Sleazy, sexy, swinging London. With Saffron Burrows. Wearing stockings and suspenders. Thought that might grab your attention…
Written by two Brit TV giants Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement (creators of classic sit-coms The Likely Lads, Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet) and directed by Australian Roger Donaldson (The Getaway, Cocktail, Cadillac Man) The Bank Job tells the true story of an extraordinary robbery.
Recalling the evocative sense of period achieved by Scandal (that wonderfully authentic movie about call girls and politicians, starring Joanne Whalley and Bridget Fonda), it stars Jason Statham as unshaven, untrustworthy and thoroughly unattractive dodgepot second hand car dealer, drowning in debts and weighed down by family worries. He thinks things are bad but they’re about to get a whole let worse when a smoking Saffron Burrows slinks back into his life as ex-girlfriend Martine making an offer he can’t refuse.
He’s not the brightest flame in the matchbox, but you’d think Terry (Jason) might wonder why such an exquisite bundle of provocative femininity should suddenly appear out of his past offering to go into nefarious business with him, but hey, Terry’s a geezer bloke and as a cyber babe like moi knows from birth, geezer blokes think with their todgers and he quickly tumbles into temptation. If Martine were to ask him to rob a bank, then Terry would do it. In fact, that’s exactly what Martine does ask him to do.
What she fails to mention is that she’s an MI5 agent and, unbeknown to him, the real purpose of his mission is to steal naughty pictures of a member of the Royal Family (by implication, Princess Margaret, for all you curious royalists out there) hidden in the bank vaults by a black power leader/drug dealer/extortionist.
So far so good and the robbery goes without a hitch. Except that apart from £3m in cash, lots of sparkly jewels and the incriminating photos, Terry and his chums also found they’ve liberated damning evidence of police bribery and corruption and various prominent figures whose guilty secrets leave them at the mercy of a Soho porn king. Which means poor Terry then finds himself pursued not merely by MI5, the porn baron the police and the establishment, but every low life in London.
It’s VERY complicated and the action sometimes seems to be in slow motion, so you have to concentrate to keep up and it’s hard to warm to any of the characters, but the dialogue’s good and it’s easy on the eye. Sashaying around the screen like a buccaneering strumpet, Saffron Burrows is irresistible as the devious Martine. Would YOU commit a major robbery that threatens the very foundations of the British monarchy just because Saffron flutters her eyelashes at you? Do you know what, babeluvers? I do believe you would…
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