My Rating: 3/5
The Italian Job is a 2003 American heist action thriller film directed by F. Gary Gray
Plot:
Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg) assembles a crack team to pull off one last job; a daring heist of a safe which contains $35 million dollars worth of gold bars. However, shortly after the heist has been completed, one of the team turns against the others and escapes with the gold and leaves the remaining members of the team for dead. Following this betrayal, Charlie and his crack team which includes computer genius Lyle (Seth Green), explosives expert Left Ear (Mos Def), and getaway driver Handsome Rob (Jason Statham) set to work in recovering the gold back from the ‘rat’ in the group with the assistance of safe cracker Stella Bridger (Charlize Theron).
In-Depth Review:
The Italian job starts in Venice Italy and thus the name. After that the remainder and majority of this film is in sunny California. It is your basic revenge action robbery without police interference. Personally I think it was a wise idea to not show police, in this “style” of film, where you are cheering for the criminal to win.
I think the biggest strength of this film lies with the characters and their dialogues; as we’re introduced to each character we’re given a little bit of background information on each character in order to explain away their relevant ‘expertise’ but it’s done in a way that was both funny and clever. I quite liked the way that each character was set-up in this way. I also felt a great sense of camaraderie between the cast; the whole production was done in a very slick and tongue in cheek manner; I thought the scenes between Green and Statham were the funniest and strongest scenes, but the rest of the cast were all great as well.
Another big strength with this film is that it’s just so much fun; some heists films have a tendency to become over-plotted and throw in twist after twist. However, with the Italian Job we’re just given a straight-forward plot, but yet it’s still entertaining enough to keep you interested.
The chase sequences are fun, the direction, editing and basically all technical areas are also excellent resulting in a film that’s not only fun, but it’s also quite a good looking film too.
Performance:
Mark Wahlberg along with Charlize Theron and Edward Norton are captivating in this movie. The casting was phenomenal because of how each character worked with each other in the movie.
Norton portrays the enemy so well by making the audience despise him. His careless and less than remorseful attitude toward Wahlberg and Theron, when realizing he has fallen for the man’s daughter that he killed, makes you want to get up and punch him as Theron does in a restaurant scene.
Theron’s no B.S attitude makes the viewers give her respect, especially when she fights through working with the people that ultimately costed her her father.
Walhberg on the other hand steals the hearts of the audience by caring for Theron’s character and wanting to steal back the money from Norton to, in a way, avenge Theron’s fathers death.
Bottom Line:
This is an enjoyable action film to watch, but there’s not much suspense to it. Be sure to watch the 1969 film that stars Michael Caine, Noel Coward, Benny Hill and Raf Valone.
The Italian Job succeeds in delivering an entertaining modern take on the original 1969 heist film, thanks to a charismatic cast.
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