Movie Review - the Bank Job

"Why was this movie made?" I ask myself as I stroll from the screening to my car. What purpose does it serve? What message does it have? What impact will it have on the world, as we know it? I apply these standards to every movie I review. They are my guidelines in determining the manner in which I will judge it.

Unfortunately, The Bank Job comes up lacking on all accounts. I left feeling slightly muddied by the creators who decided to take an incident that happened decades ago involving a high raking member of the British Royal Family caught on film in the most compromising and intimate moment any of us have ... during a sex act. Do we really care what other people do in the privacy of their own four walls? Are Royals expected not to have intimate lives in their own time and in their own residences? I find it insulting to the arbiters of good taste and reason to exhume a long gone and almost forgotten incident that precipitated a gang of unskilled thieves to tunnel under a branch of a large English bank in order to ransack and plunder contents of the Safe Deposit Boxes, one of which holds the film and photos of the Royal affair involving The Queen's younger sister, Princess Margaret when she was in residence at her Caribbean hideaway.

Given the content and theme of The Bank Job it comes as no shock that the
entire project is English to the core. It would appear that England has no conscience when it comes to sticking brown noses into the life of the longest reigning Monarch in history and the immediate members of her family. They are humans, first of all, and surrounded by temptations extended to us all, even more so, given of their place in History.

As for the story, it's as bland as the British diet and has no recognizable stars for American audiences. There are too many characters with back-stories not well developed. Suffice it to say there are drugs involved, lots of the female form shown nude from the waist up to pull in the male audience, a few grizzly murders, lots of arguing between the thieves, a stunning female actress doing her damnedest, deep corruption of the London police system, and a heist larger than any in history up to then. Throw in corrupt members of Parliament who are also caught on film during sexual activities and they are all trying to cover their asses while at the same time doing their best to save the reputation of Princess Margaret, poor thing, may she rest in peace.

Add to the stew an inept police department with cars charging all over London after a ham radio operator overhears the thieves on their walkie-talkies during the robbery. How convenient. Only one ham radio operator in London?

If you can stay awake through the first three quarters it does pick up the pace, too late, toward the fourth.

Why was this movie made? What purpose does it serve? What message does it have? What impact will it have on the world, as we know it?

The answer, like the movie, is ... nothing.