The Bank Job.

"Ever since John Huston's Asphalt Jungle set the pattern for the genre in 1950, the heist picture has been enduringly popular with film audiences around the world, for reasons that surely have something to do with the universal allure of ill-gotten gains," writes Terrence Rafferty in the New York Times. "But while the dream of the big score may be what attracts the audience's attention, the classic heist movies, like The Asphalt Jungle, Jules Dassin's Rififi (1955) and Stanley Kubrick's Killing (1956), all show - sometimes in excruciating detail - that the acquisition of easy money can be mighty hard work. That's certainly the case in Roger Donaldson's new Bank Job (opening Friday), which is based on a real 1971 London robbery and which involves, as British exercises in this genre often do, a fearsome amount of tunneling."

Updated through 3/7.

"The film races along with the speed of a bullet train, catches the 1960s ethos just as it had gone totally rancid and is a great deal of ugly, subversive fun," writes the Observer's Philip French. But for the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, "Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais have written some gems in the past, but with this period geezer caper starring Jason Statham, the lads really are bang aht of order."

"[T]his is a messy but watchable yarn boasting borderline-absurd levels of 1970s bling and Statham in turtlenecks," writes the Telegraph's Tim Robey. "The robbery itself is a good, taut set piece. If we're honest, though, Statham is treading water - it's his forthcoming return as the unstoppable Chev Chelios in Crank 2: High Voltage I'm really banking on."

"This is a good old British family tale about bank robbers, Soho pornographers, bent policemen, sexually perverse public-school politicos and, horror of horrors, a young female royal who likes a bit of an orgy," writes Derek Malcolm in the Evening Standard. "The Bank Job is British to the core, without even the glib chutzpah of Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. It can't hold a candle to either Mike Hodges's Get Carter (1971) or John MacKenzie's The Long Good Friday (1979)."

For the New Yorker's David Denby, this is "an enjoyable new British heist movie that falls into the genial line of The Lavender Hill Mob, The Day They Robbed the Bank of England and other such easygoing Anglo entertainments about the pleasures of theft."

"I give in," sighs Nick Schager at Slant. "Regardless of his limited acting range and penchant for choosing the goofiest projects available, Jason Statham is pretty awesome, and The Bank Job marks his finest work in years, mostly thanks to the absence of a gimmick to help prop up his performance."

Updates, 3/5: "Despite the delightful pile-up of coincidences and catastrophes inherent in [its] very clever storyline, The Bank Job somehow lacks personality," writes Sean Burns in the Philadelphia Weekly. "Just good enough that you’ll wish it were better, The Bank Job is going to play great on cable."

The Reeler is pulling for Jason Statham to break out.

"[I]'s kind of cool to see a contemporary thriller in which motivation is handled with a sharp eye and ear for ambiguity," writes Premiere's Glenn Kenny. "Which is not to say that the requisite satisfying thrills aren't delivered - they are, with commendable style."

"Over the years, we've seen thousands of tunnels dug and a million safe deposit boxes busted open, but the complications surrounding The Bank Job's actual break-in might have been interesting - if they weren't handled in a breathless, superficial manner that suggests Donaldson never trusts the material itself to keep us engaged," writes Jürgen Fauth.

Updates, 3/7: Stephanie Zacharek in Salon: "In the movies, pulling off a good heist always involves a certain degree of skill, of good-natured buffoonery, of haphazard luck, and the characters in Roger Donaldson's The Bank Job generously fill all those requirements."

"True or not, the on-screen follies mostly amuse and generally divert," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times.

In the Independent Weekly, Godfrey Cheshire finds it "soundly made, a genre piece that's happy enough to spin a good tale and not care about its lack of stars or even making that eponymous bank heist particularly exciting."

For Kevin Crust, writing in the Los Angeles Times, the screenwriters "have woven a masterful narrative full of odd twists and dark humor from which Australian director Roger Donaldson and a prime cast mine plum characters and a tight plot to satisfying effect."

Posted by dwhudson at March 3, 2008 2:36 PM