The Bank Job is notable for being an at least partly “true” exposé into the spec­tac­u­lar (and suc­cess­ful) rob­bery of Lloyds Bank in Lon­don in 1971. For what­ever rea­son, an anony­mous par­tic­i­pant of the inves­ti­ga­tion chose to coöper­ate in the mak­ing of this fic­tion­al­ized film rather than a book or mag­a­zine arti­cle. If true, this far-reaching con­spir­acy story fin­gers the royal fam­ily, par­lia­ment, MI-5 & 6, the police, and even con­tem­po­rary black power fig­ure Michael X in a mas­sive cover-up suc­cess­fully with­held from the pub­lic for over 35 years. After being por­trayed less than flat­ter­ingly in The Queen, the royal fam­ily is now surely even less amused with The Bank Job’s alle­ga­tions against Princess Mar­garet. If even partly true, this exposé would have held more weight as, say, a Van­ity Fair arti­cle than a fic­tion­al­ized the­atri­cal film.

The gog­gles! They do nothing!

With its clever non­lin­ear struc­ture, gruff alpha-male anti-hero (Jason Statham), and untrust­wor­thy femme fatale (Saf­fron Bur­rows), The Bank Job seems at first a solid entry into the heist genre in the tra­di­tion of Rififi, Thief, and The Ital­ian Job. But the tone shifts as the stakes rise, to a more seri­ous and vio­lent don’t-trust-anyone thriller à la the Bourne trilogy.

Saf­fron Bur­rows in That 70’s Show?

Offi­cial movie site: www.thebankjobmovie.com

Fur­ther read­ing on the real-life fig­ures and events: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bank_Job

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