A dirty 'Job'

In 1971, the safety-deposit-box vault of Lloyd’s Bank in London was robbed. No arrests were made, and no money was ever recovered. Shortly after, the British government formally ordered the press to withhold any information they had received about the robbery. Jason Statham, the British ex-model turned credible actor who wowed us all in 2000’s “Snatch” now stars in the only film that has ever told the allegedly true story: “The Bank Job.”

If you can get past the bad taste the stale title leaves in your mouth, the film itself is about as tasty as heist movies come, ever since the “Ocean’s Eleven” franchise began exhausting the genre. Statham plays Terry, a career criminal looking for a big score that will make him enough money to fund his family’s retirement from the criminal underworld. Terry pulls together an amateur team of street criminals to pull off one of the most daring bank heists in British history. The robbery itself is a fun mess, showing the audience how money can be stolen with bare hands and ingenuity, as opposed to with a gun in someone’s face or a technology-defying gadget picking the safe for you.

Though it dawdles at times, “The Bank Job” seems to keep just the right amount of tension during every scene. After his success in past crime movies, Statham has perfected the art of playing a career criminal. Though he may seem boring compared to his roles in “The Transporter” or “Crank,” this movie sacrifices shock value and flimsy entertainment for real acting. In this particular role, you can see the desperation in his eyes, hear the cunning in his voice and smell the pint of lager on his breath. Though his supporting cast is weak in credentials, its members come through valiantly in believability and performance.

The best aspect of the film is that it takes us all back to a time when robbing banks was a gritty, work-loaded affair, as opposed to the capers of sci-fi technology and unrealistic cunning that are depicted in heist movies today. “The Bank Job” requires only a little concentration in order to give out its no-frills payoff, full of fact-based fiction and old-school thrills, guaranteed to make you scream for more information on the real robbers as soon as the credits start to roll.