Don’t be fooled into thinking that The Bank Job is just the latest heist thriller put together looking for some blockbuster buck. Actually, it’s a film that brings to light facts about a real life bank robbery that occurred in London in 1971. Due to the classified nature of some of the material that was stolen, the British government placed a D-Notice gag order preventing the story from ever being told. Until now, that is.

The plot is set into motion when a black radical named Michael X blackmails the British government with racy photographs he took of a certain member of the royal family. Since these photos are the only thing standing in the way of putting away the challenging Mr. X, MI5 (or is it MI6?—not even the characters in the film seem to know) puts in motion a plan to steal these photographs out of the safe deposit box where they are being kept. Still, there can be no ties between the robbery and the government.

Enter Terry Leather, a car salesman with a shady past and overdue debts. He and his small crew of lightweight criminals are recruited by leggy model Martine Love, who convinces them that it is a simple heist all about the money and jewels.

They purchase a small purse shop a couple of establishments down from the bank and dig their way right into the safe deposit box room. Unfortunately, that’s only the beginning of their problems.

The robbery was often referred to as the “Walkie-Talkie robbery” as the crooks’ sloppy communication was overheard by a Ham radio operator who reported them to the cops—who only needed to determine which bank they were robbing.

The problems only get worse once the robbery is complete and they realize that there are some pretty bad characters who kept some very private information in those safe deposit boxes. Some of this information may even be worth killing to protect.

The Bank Job has everything you ask for in a heist movie: compelling, entertaining characters pulling off a suspenseful heist with a few tension-breaking wise cracks and a tight plot that unravels through intriguing twists and turns. The film may be missing the centerpiece action scene—a la the Mini-Cooper getaway in The Italian Job—or the big, mind-blowing reveal—think Ocean’s Eleven—but they probably would have served more as a distraction than a help to this pseudo-documentary tale.

Jason Statham and Saffron Burrows lead the vast, talented cast. Statham—who I’ll always think of as Handsome Rob from another great heist movie, The Italian Job—plays Terry like he’s, well, like he’s Jason Statham. Fortunately, Jason Statham is just what this film needs. In some of the heist scenes, by contrast, Burrows looks like an out-of-place supermodel; but for the most part she holds her own. The rest of the cast is filled out nicely with talented British character actors.

The film is directed by Roger Donaldson, and although The Bank Job doesn’t maintain the same kind of tension as the director’s 2000 Cuban missile crisis flick Thirteen Days, it’s got enough to keep anybody’s interest for its 110 minute running time. And there’s no poor Kevin Costner accent, so that’s a plus.

I’m not sure how authentic the story is (the end credits explain that some of the names were changed to protect the guilty), but The Bank Job is an entertaining movie made all the more intriguing by the fact that it is a never-before-told story. I enjoyed every minute of it.

The Bank Job is rated R for “sexual content, nudity, violence and language.” No efforts are made to make this a family friendly movie. The sex, nudity, and language are all right out there in the open, but although some of the violence is disturbing, the worst of it is performed off camera and left to our imaginations. That may be worse, though.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Jeff attended a promotional screening of The Bank Job.