Based on a classified bank robbery that took place in 1971 London that resulted in no arrests and no money recovered, The Bank Job is a compelling story about what crime can get you and where it could ultimately take you. According to the closing remarks of the film, the story was prevented from ever being told to protect a prominent member of the British Royal Family. This film reveals the truth about the heist for the first time with the names being changed to protect the guilty.

Terry Leather (Jason Statham), a car dealer with money troubles, is offered a lead on an infallible bank heist in London. He recognizes the opportunity of a lifetime and accepts the offer. With a crew of his trusty friends, Terry targets a roomful of safety deposit boxes worth millions in cash and jewelry. What Terry and his crew don’t recognize is that the safety deposit boxes also contain a bundle of dirty secrets that will thrust them into ultimate danger with London’s criminal underworld, the highest forces of the British government, and the Royal Family itself.

Limited by the lack of story, Director Roger Donaldson is left to fill the blanks in the story. How much of this story is actually the truth? Don’t really know, but what we do know is that Donaldson and his writers have mixed together fact, fiction, and the gossip of many decades to form a complete film. The story is complicated by multiple plot lines that slow the flow of the film leaving many viewers confused. The first half of the film has the feel of the Ocean’s Trilogy with less passion, and the second half dives off with a feel of Mission: Impossible without the kick.

Long since separated from the days of Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Jason Statham returns to a similar acting style, which vaulted him into stardom in those two films. Statham abandons his butt-kicking, tough guy ways for a sleek, bank-robbing family man in this bank heist, similar in story to The Italian Job, in which Statham also stars.

Rated R for sexual content, nudity, violence and language, the film is too mature for anyone under the age of 18. Prepare yourself before going in for many scenes that contain more than brief nudity. Also, prepare yourself for raunchy British accents containing many spats of “bloody hell”, “arse”, and “bollocks”.

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