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Banking never seemed this exciting, enjoyable.

The Bank Job is a spirited heist romp through London in the early 1970’s, and an example of how adaptations of real stories make life seem far more exciting than it really is. Highly stylized and romanticized, it swiftly tells of the “Walkie-Talkie Robbery” that actually happened in Central London in 1971. The Bank Job is about much more - corruption, murder and sex scandal from the top levels of government down – and while much of it feels unoriginal, it’s an enjoyable and entertaining ride.

Terry (Jason Statham) is a dealer of swanky used-cars. He’s had a checkered past but has a new life and a new family. Martine (Saffron Burrows), a model and ravishing ex-flame of Terry’s, suddenly reappears with a lead on a bank hit in London’s Baker Street and both realize it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. They target the bank’s vault, which contains safe deposit boxes with millions of dollars of cash and jewelry. However, they don’t realize that the boxes contain some dirty secrets that thrust them into a web of corruption and scandal that spans from the top levels of the British government to the local crime scene.

The Bank Job is a serviceable action thriller that benefits from its skilled direction and acting. Roger Donaldson (No Way Out, Thirteen Days) pulls out all the stops, with tense, unnerving but realistic action set pieces, and eliciting decent but minimalist performances from his leads, especially the nimble, athletic Statham, who is better known for making shallower action movies like The Transporter. This gives him a far more substantial role and shows the former Olympic athlete can handle something more than jumping out of helicopters or running through explosions.  Beautiful real-life model Burrows has little to do here but she poses well and is easy on the eyes.

Bank’s script from writing team Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (Across the Universe) is more problematic. It uses the Walkie-Talkie Robbery as just a backdrop, changing it substantially and working seemingly complex (and probably fabricated) angles. This makes Bank’s true story far more interesting than it actually was, and some of it has an urban-legend mystery to it that makes it both intriguing and far-fetched at the same time.

Still, there’s much to like about The Bank Job. It’s stuffed with many memorable characters, including Michael X (Peter de Jersey) a real-life African crime lord who had connections to the vault, and Lew Vogel (David Suchet), a local crime boss and team members Kevin (Stephen Campbell Moore), a photographer, and Dave (Daniel Mays) a charismatic part-time porn actor. All of these relatively unknown British character actors make their own nifty contributions to Bank, even if many details were changed from what really happened.

Donaldson ably handles the proceedings, and no pun intended, but many of The Bank Job’s plot elements seem borrowed from movies such as The Italian Job, Ocean’s Eleven and even Spike Lee’s Inside Man. Donaldson densely and quickly packs all he can in the movie, right down to a falsely upbeat, implausible ending. The romantic angles don’t work (after all this is a heist film, not a chick flick) with Burrows and Statham sharing very little if any chemistry at all. The busyness of the Bank’s plot works in its favor, with little time to focus on details or backstory.

What does work in The Bank Job is the swift pacing and action set pieces, including the actual heist itself, the planning, the digging, the getaway. You’re right there in the midst of the action holding your breath every step of the way, and for that Donaldson should be commended for successfully helming all these puzzle pieces together.

If you enjoy heist movies and true stories, then The Bank Job is for you. There’s much to enjoy and likewise much to forget the second you leave the movie theatre. The film’s epilogue provides details into the real story, and it will have you surfing the net for more of the real story, which is fascinating but far less exciting than the movie version.

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