BANK JOB, THE - DVD review

"The Bank Job" is one of the more disappointingly mediocre and overall uneventful films I've sat through in a long while. It's not necessarily a bad movie, but it's also not a very good one, either. "The Bank Job" is simply the same heist movie you've already seen made and remade for the past fifty years. I suppose in a world devoid of "Riffi," "Reservoir Dogs," and "The Killing," "The Bank Job" might seem like a notable entry to the genre. But thankfully we do not live in that sad sounding world, and here in this reality "The Bank Job" would have gone completely unnoticed if not for the inclusion of Jason Statham in the leading role.

Based on of "true events," the plot for "The Bank Job" is as simplistic as it comes. A group of robbers get together under the guidance of somebody who isn't completely honest about their reasons for staging said heist. The heist occurs and things go wrong and then a bunch of double crossing occurs until the end credits roll. For those of you in need of more explanation, here it is in drawn-out detail. Petty criminal Terry Leathers (Statham) is approached by his ex-girlfriend Martine (Saffron Burrows), who lets him in on a security breach she's become aware of at a bank on Baker Street in London. Terry gathers a crew of like-minded thieves, and the group digs their way into the vault of the bank. The only problem is that Martine wasn't entirely honest about the heist's true mission. While the rest of the group grabs all the cash and jewels they can pry out of the vault's safe deposit boxes, Martine makes a beeline for one box in particular. For she's been enlisted by MI5 to recover the contents of the box registered to black revolutionary Micheal X, blackmail photographs of Princess Margret doing the horizontal mambo with a couple of cabana boys. On top of that, the thieves also manage to pilfer an additional folder of photos featuring many high-ranking government officials being serviced at a local S & M brothel. After fleeing the scene, a few different double crosses occur with the end result for our rag-tag group of thieves being a city-wide manhunt involving the coppers, as well as the UK's top security agency and thugs from both Micheal X's camp and the brothel.

While the film proudly states that its plot is "Based on A True Story," the fact that the news reports regarding the original 1971 robbery were blocked for reasons of National Security led the scriptwriters to rely on a sincere amount of speculation. Micheal X's true involvement is unknown as his government files have been sealed since the incident. Thus, "The Bank Job" is yet another one of those movies that's kinda sorta almost based on true events that might have happened but probably didn't.

There isn't a stand-out moment in the entire 110-minute runtime of "The Bank Job." The cinematography is completely average, there isn't a remarkable bit of acting occurring on screen, and the script is painfully by the numbers. Upon glancing at the resume for the duo that wrote "The Bank Job," this isn't entirely surprising given their biggest films to date rested on the shoulders of either the film's soundtrack "Across the Universe" or a familiar animation style "Flushed Away." The directing is as average as it gets. But who in their right mind was expecting to see a film with any sort of an original voice crafted by Roger Donaldson, the man who gave us "Cocktail," "Species," and "Dante's Peak"? The main tragedy of "The Bank Job" is the complete waste of Jason Statham, who was seemingly headed to the top tier of action stars with hits like "Crank," "Snatch," and "The Transporter." Given that his next four projects are all unwanted sequels or remakes, it seems as if Statham's star has already begun its decent back to earth and will inevitably crash in a field of bland direct-to-DVD action films.

Video:
The anamorphic widescreen presentation featuring a 2.35:1 aspect ratio is fairly competent and has no glaring flaws, yet without any sort of dynamic filmmaking present, there really isn't a need for excellence at this point.

Audio:
Both the Dolby Digital 5.1 and stereo tracks sound fine, yet there is precious little occurring on screen to make any decent use of them.

Extras:
The feature-length audio commentary with Donaldson, Burrows, and composer J. Peter Robinson is your average, run-of-the-mill, self-gratifying pat on the backfest with undeserved accolades being thrown about with careless abandon. Statham's absence is evidence of the commentary's lack of necessary inclusion on the disc. "Inside the Bank Job" is a simple, seventeen-minute, behind-the-scenes look at the film that's fairly unremarkable with the exception of an ironic sound byte from one of the film's writers proclaiming that "nobody falls asleep during a Donaldson movie." Well, I did. It took multiple viewings to finish off this film, and to be fair I'm sure that many a soul has passed into slumber land on their couches with the dulcet sounds of "Cadillac Man" echoing through the room.

The best thing on this disc (including the movie) is "The Baker Street Bank Raid," a fifteen-minute featurette covering the original bank heist. It's full of interviews with historians, policemen, and even a former MI5 agent. The inclusion of original crime scene photos along with interviews with people actually involved in the crime that inspired this film solidifies it as necessary viewing. A little further down necessity avenue where it meets up with forgettable street are more than ten deleted scenes spread out over six minutes with optional commentary with Donaldson and Burrows. The only worthwhile event during this special feature is when Donaldson openly admits to not knowing whether or not one of the deleted scenes actually ended up in the film. The second disc on this two-disc set is another one of those fake-o discs that doesn't have anything on it except a digital copy of the movie. If you need to have the ability fall asleep on the subway while watching this on your iPhone, then this is the set for you. But those of you that don't need the electronic copy of the film should just stick to the solo disc version.

Film Value:
I am by no means a fan of recent "flashy" action flicks like "Wanted," "Underworld" or "The Matrix." Yet "The Bank Job" was still too slow paced even for me. In a world overflowing with great heist movies, an effortless time waster like "The Bank Job" simply has no reason to exist. It will be quickly forgotten over the next three to five years, only to be remembered by the occasional airing on a lazy Sunday afternoon on TNT. Even then I'd rather sit through "Ocean's Thirteen" again before settling for the likes of "The Bank Job." And, no, I wasn't just saying that to be mean.... Okay, maybe just a little bit.