The Bank Job

Infobox Film
name = The Bank Job


caption = Promotional movie poster
director = Roger Donaldson
producer = David Alper
writer = Dick Clement
Ian La Frenais
George McIndoe
Aaron Shuster
starring = Jason Statham
Saffron Burrows
music = J. Peter Robinson
cinematography = Michael Coulter
editing = John Gilbert
casting = Lucinda Syson
distributor = Lions Gate Entertainment (US, UK) [ [http://www.pinewoodgroup.com/gen/z_sys_infoProduction.aspx?intProductionId=1759 The Bank Job] , Pinewood Studios, Accessed 9 January 2008]
Paramount Pictures (Australia)
released = 29 February 2008
runtime = 1 hr. 51 mins. [ [http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Classified.nsf/ClassifiedWorks/08C3039ABC44D8B6802573A8005DC9AE The Bank Job] as submitted to the BBFC, 5 December 2007, Accessed 9 January 2008]
country = UK
language = English
budget =
gross = $56,671,540 (worldwide)
preceded by =
followed_by =
website = http://www.bankjobmovie.co.uk/
amg_id = 1:388941
imdb_id = 0200465

"The Bank Job" is a 2008 British crime film directed by Roger Donaldson and starring Jason Statham, based on the 1971 Baker Street robbery in central London, from which the money and valuables stolen were never recovered. The producers allege that the story was prevented from being told because of a D-Notice (now known as a DA-Notice) government gagging request, allegedly to protect a prominent member of the British Royal Family. [cite web|url=http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2031266,00.html|title=Untold story of Baker Street bank robbery|publisher=The Guardian|date=March 11, 2007] cite web|url=http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2008/02/16/bank-job-that-opened-the-door-on-a-royal-sex-scandal-89520-20320893/|title=Bank job that opened the door on a royal sex scandal|publisher=Daily Mirror|date=February 16, 2008] According to the producers, this movie is intended to reveal the truth for the first time, [ [http://www.lionsgatefilms.co.uk/films.php?id=57 Production Information] , Lionsgate UK website, Accessed 9 January 2008] although it includes significant elements of fiction and the extent to which it represents historical fact is difficult to determine.

The premiere was held in London on 18 February 2008, and the film was released in the UK on 28 February 2008.

Plot

Petty-criminal-gone-straight Terry Leather (Jason Statham) owns a failing car-sales garage being harassed by two debt-collectors. His old girlfriend Martine (Saffron Burrows) offers Terry a chance to earn enough money to never worry about debt again: a bank robbery in Baker Street, London. Terry gathers a bunch of petty-criminal friends to help execute the plan. They lease a shop two lots away from the bank and start digging a tunnel underneath the middle shop (a chicken fast-food restaurant) in order to reach the underground bank vault. Terry employs Eddie (Michael Jibson), a worker in his garage, as a "watchman" with a walkie-talkie to sit on the roof of the building opposite and keep a look out for trouble.

What they don't know is that Martine, who has been caught smuggling heroin into Britain and desperately wants to avoid jail, is setting them up on behalf of MI5, which wants the contents of a certain safe deposit box (No. 118) within the bank. This safe deposit box contains compromising photos of a female member of the British Royal Family (identified in the film as Princess Margaret). The photos are in a box belonging to a black militant who calls himself Michael X; he is using the photos to avoid trouble with the Metropolitan Police, and MI5 is desperate to keep the photos out of circulation.

As Terry and his crew dig, their radio chatter draws the attention of a local amateur radio operator, who listens in on the conversation and realises he's overhearing a bank robbery in progress. He calls the police, but with a ten-mile radius to search and a lack of concrete details, they fail to pin the robbery down.

After they have broken in and begin looting the vault, Martine goes for the deposit-box with the photos. A suspicious Terry opens the box with her and, upon seeing the pictures, knows that Martine has a hidden agenda. In addition to those photos, further photos of a number of high-ranking government officials are found, at the top a senior MP in compromising positions in a local S&M brothel. The robbers pocket these with the money and other valuables. Terry arranges for alternate transportation "to be safe", throwing off MI5 who had intended to immediately intercept them.

Guy (James Faulkner) and Bambas (Alki David), leave with their share of the spoils. When Terry confronts Martine over the photos, she explains their predicament. Meanwhile, the robbery is discovered, and the police — both corrupt ones receiving payoffs and honest ones — start their investigation. MI5 is likewise searching. Lew Vogel (David Suchet), a local club owner, is worried about the contents of his ledger, which lists every payoff he's made to the police, which was stolen during the robbery. He also phones Michael X to inform him that his box containing the royal 'portraits' has gone missing. Michael X starts to get suspicious of Gale Benson, a British spy who has befriended his brother and gone with the family to Trinidad.

The club owner manages to find one of the robbers, Dave (Daniel Mays) and tortures him for information. When he eventually tells Vogel everything, Vogel goes to the garage where Terry worked and kidnaps Eddie, who was the lookout during the robbery, taking him to the same secret location and tying him down. At the same time, the senior MP is shown the photos of himself in the brothel, and agrees to try to help absolve the robbers of all wrongdoing and give them safe passage out of the country. Meanwhile, MI5 issues a D-Notice forbidding the press from reporting on the heist any longer. Police simultaneously release recordings from the walkie-talkie conversations, in the hope that someone will recognize the voices. These recordings are heard on the radio by Terry's family.

The club owner's accomplice shoots Dave in the head and threatens to shoot Eddie unless he gets his ledger book (with incriminating info about payoffs) back. Lew makes an agreement with Terry, and agree to meet him at Paddington Station in London. During this time as well, Guy and Bambas are murdered by unknown people, and Michael kills Benson. Terry has Kev give the same instruction to the officer in charge of the investigation, citing knowledge of corrupt officers under his control. He also convinces the club owner to go to Paddington Station at the same time, offering him the book with details of corrupt officers in return for the safe return of his mechanic. This results in a large meeting of all of the involved parties at the same time.

Terry stands on the platform waiting for the others, while Martine meets up with Tim Everett, her original contact within MI5, on a bridge overlooking the scene. The club owner and his corrupt police accomplices arrive with the mechanic, but recognize MI5 agents present and run. At the same time, the head of MI5 arrives (with Lord Mountbatten), handing over the documentation and passports that Terry bargained for, in return for the photos of the princess. Terry then chases the fleeing club owner and his henchmen. He starts to attack the club owner, and then fights with one of the aides, knocking them both out. The second aide appears with a gun, but Terry manages to avoid the shots and knock him out with a brick hastily dislodged from a wall.

The police officer in charge of the investigation then arrives, and sees the robbers being arrested. He speaks with the MI5 officers present, who direct police to let the robbers go. Terry gives the ledger to the police officer before he, Kevin, and Eddie go away. Vogel and the corrupt officers are arrested. Everett personally supervises Michael X's arrest in Trinidad and Tobago and has Benson's remains exhumed for reburial in Britain.

The epilogue states that the revelations about the brothel forces drove many government officials to resign. Scotland Yard starts investigating the corrupt officers named in the ledger. Michael X was hanged in 1975 for Benson's murder and his personal files are kept hidden in the British National Archives until 2054. Vogel gets imprisoned eight years for crimes that were unrelated to the robbery. The murderers of Guy and Bambas have never been found. About GBP 4 million worth of materials and money was stolen from the robbery. At least 100 safety-deposit box owners did not claim insurance nor identify their items in the boxes.

Cast

*Jason Statham as Terry Leather
*Saffron Burrows as Martine Love
*Richard Lintern as Tim Everett
*Stephen Campbell Moore as Kevin Swain
*James Faulkner as Guy Singer
*Craig Fairbrass as Nick Barton
*Daniel Mays as Dave Shilling
*Alki David as Bambas
*Michael Jibson as Eddie Burton
*David Suchet as Lew Vogel, club owner
*Peter Bowles as Miles Urquhart
*Peter de Jersey as Michael X
*Keeley Hawes as Wendy Leather

Production

The film is in part based on historical facts. A gang tunnelled into a branch of Lloyds Bank at the junction between Baker Street and Marylebone Road, in London, on the night of 11 September 1971 and robbed the safe deposit boxes there. The robbers had rented a leather goods shop named Le Sac, two doors down from the bank, and tunnelled a distance of approximately 40 feet (12 metres), passing under the intervening Chicken Inn restaurant. Robert Rowlands, a radio ham operator, overheard conversations between the robbers and their rooftop lookout. He contacted police and tape recorded the conversations, which were subsequently made public. The film includes lines recorded by Rowlands, such as the lookout's comment that "Money may be your god, but it's not mine, and I'm fucking off." [cite news | last = Hoyle | first = Antonia | coauthors = | title = FOUND: Radio Ham's sensational tape of the bank heist 'that rescued compromising pictures of Princess Margaret' | work = | pages = | language = | publisher = Daily Mail | date = 2008-02-16 | url = http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=515138&in_page_id=1770 | accessdate = 2008-03-17] After four days of news coverage, British authorities issued a D-Notice, requesting that news coverage be discontinued for reasons of national security, and the story disappeared from newspapers. The purpose for the D-Notice was never disclosed, and its existence was not confirmed until recently.

The film's producers claim that they have an inside source, identified in press reports as George McIndoe, who served as an executive producer. [cite news | last = Lawrence | first = Will | coauthors = | title = Revisiting the riddle of Baker Street | work = | pages = | language = | publisher = The Daily Telegraph | date = 2008-02-15 | url = http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/15/bfbankjob15.xml | accessdate = 2008-03-17] The film's claims that the issuance of the D-Notice was because a safe deposit box held sex pictures of Princess Margaret, and the possible connection to Michael X (whose governmental file purportedly is secret until 2054), are apparently based on information provided by McIndoe, though it is not clear what is the basis of his information or how specific it is supposed to be. The film makers apparently have acknowledged that they made up the character Martine, and "The New Yorker's" conclusion that it is "impossible to say how much of the film's story is true" appears to be correct. [cite news | last = Denby | first = David | coauthors = | title = Class Acts: "The Bank Job" and "The Duchess of Langeais" | work = | pages = | language = | publisher = The New Yorker | date = 2008-03-10 | url = http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2008/03/10/080310crci_cinema_denby | accessdate = 2008-03-17]

Part of the filming took place on location at the offices of Websters, 136 Baker Street where the rooftops were actually used for lookout purposes.

Reception

The Movie was well received by critics. As of 13 June 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 78% of the T-Meter critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 126 reviews. [cite web|url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1189844-the_bank_job/ |title=The Bank Job - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes |accessdate=2008-03-07 |publisher=Rotten Tomatoes] Rotten Tomatoes also reports that 90% of the "top critics" gave the film positive reviews based on 29 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 69 out of 100, based on 32 reviews. [cite web|url=http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/bankjob |title=Bank Job, The (2008): Reviews |accessdate=2008-03-07 |publisher=Metacritic]

Box office performance

The film has grossed $30,060,660 in the United States and Canada, and $26,610,880 in other territories for a total worldwide gross of $56,671,540. [cite web|url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=bankjob.htm |title=The Bank Job (2008) |accessdate=2008-06-11 |publisher=Box Office Mojo] The film opened at #4 in North America and grossed $5,935,256 in 1,603 theaters, averaging to about $3,703 per theater. [cite web|url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=bankjob.htm |title=The Bank Job (2008) - Weekend Box Office Results |accessdate=2008-03-10 |publisher=Box Office Mojo]

oundtrack

*"Get It On" – T.Rex
*"Lola" – The Kinks
*"Hey There" – The Basics
*"Money (That's What I Want)" – Covered by The Storys, seen early in the film as the wedding band
*"Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress" – The Hollies
*"In the Midnight Hour" – Wilson Pickett
*"Gunshot" – Anthony Johnson

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0200465|title=The Bank Job
*rotten-tomatoes|id=1189844-the_bank_job|title=The Bank Job
*metacritic film|id=bankjob|title=The Bank Job
*mojo title|id=bankjob|title=The Bank Job
*amg movie|id=1:388941|title=The Bank Job
* [http://www.noiroftheweek.com/2008/10/bank-job-2008.html Film Noir of the Week]