The Bank Job

More Fiction Than Fact, But Fun!

That's it, that's most of my review... So repeat after me with your best husky cockney tone: "what's it all about then eh, Jason?"

What's Good About It
I don't know why crime fiction from England is so compelling. The robbers in the East End, the sleuths, the crooked cops, the journalists, the politicians, the prostitutes and pimps; it's all a never ending circus of characters that make up the vast ocean of crime fiction in England. This film lands somewhere in the tradition with the attendant trappings. It's one part 'Get Carter', one part 'Italian Job' and one part 'The Ipcress File' - All of them are some-time-cockney-boy-done-good Michael Caine's movies. If if were still 1971, I'm guessing it would be Michael Caine organising the gang that goes digging into the vault.

Luckily for us, it's not Caine's cine-successor Jude Law doing the stuff, but a more rough-around-the-edge Jason Statham. I don't know why, but his baldness and scruffy charm lends a certain credibility to his life-weary character. He is a wonderful star who carries enough baggage into the role to understand what we are seeing is highly contextual. Indeed, the world of London Crime in the 1970s is something that requires a nuanced, relativist mindset to navigate. Prostitution and porn, graft and greed, high office and bondage, all roll around in the mud joyously and it takes a seasoned-looking Statham to make it look overwhelming as a daily grind.

Then there is the preposterous connectivity of the narrative that links John and Yoko through to Lord Moutbatten via Porn Barons, black activists, crooked cops and the MI5. It's all very entertaining how the screenwriters manage to juggle so many balls in the air and still get the story to hang together. Indeed, it's dressed like a heist movie, but it's only when they get to the vault to find that what they find does the story hit the thrill-gear - and that's not a bad choice.

Tim, the MI5 guy looks like an echo of Connery's James Bond - dapper, casual, with a hint of capacity for incredible violence. The Conservative politicians look like echoes of the type who got caught in the Profumo affair; and the cars look just fabulously 1971. A Ford Cortina actually looks fresh on the London streets in this film. As period pieces go, this one is very nice with many laughable touches.

What's bad About It
I imagine English boys who know the terrain so well would actually object to this film. If you're far away from London as I am and live in an entirely different kind of corrupt town, the shenanigans of the underclass of London is actually quite amusing entertainment fare.

Also, I'm not really sure about the claims to truth. For instance, the film places Gale Ann Benson as an MI5 operative undercover - which may be true, but there are indications to the contrary - you only need to dig around with Google. I guess I'm left wondering about the facts and in so doing I feel a little disappointment with the conception of the film.
Having said all that, if the worst thing I can think of is that it plays a little hard and fast with the facts, then what am I really saying?

True Story, Loosely Based On Fact
Well, there was a bank robbery, to be sure...

Films are suppose to be fanciful. To go watch a movie and then complain that it's fanciful is a little like going to a brothel and complaining that there's too much sex going on. One of the big myths about cinema and even cinema verite documentary making is that there is a literary 'Naturalist' representation of anything going on in front of the lens; or that this naturalistic representation survives the process where there is picture editing, sound effects added, music composed, and then colour-graded. It's just not feasible that any object can go through this process and be naturalistic or for that matter approach the kind of literary naturalism or realism.

Cinematic meaning is a lot more motile and fleeting than that, and we should all be aware that we could all be misreading the text - but that's all okay. Texts are there to be fundamentally misread. My year 12 English teacher Mr Lucas would spew, but that's the kind of world we live in now. So just because they say it's based on a true story, don't complain when it doesn't ring true. After all, we live in post-Post-Modern Times where authoritative texts are largely stripped of the said gravitas. There is no space for capital 'T' truths in the Dream Factory. The rest is just... entertainment.

Criminality, 1970s Style

If I were doing a 'movie double', the film I would pull out of the video store would be 'American Gangster'. Both feature a moment in history when Black activism crossed over into violence and crime as well as shed insight into the nature of how crime and policing inevitably seem to meet up, resulting in corruption. Simply put, the amount of money in crime grew so fast and far outstripped the capacity of police to pay enough to its own.

Indeed, revelations this week about the late Abe "Mr. Sin" Saffron in our own city of Sydney and his relationship with the police and politicians shows that there was a point in time in the First World that was totally vulnerable to this problem. It's actually a mystery if it ever really ended. Here's a dose of the SMH article:

THE disgraced former Liberal premier Bob Askin was not only on the payroll of the late crime boss Abe Saffron, but was the recipient of payments via horse races that were fixed as "a courtesy to premier Askin".

Askin and a police commissioner were among those who received thousands of dollars a week from Saffron, the crime figure's son has confirmed in a book on his father, to be released soon.

Saffron was also involved in loan sharking. One of his borrowers was Kerry Packer.

Despite Saffron's lifelong denial of involvement in criminal activity, in Gentle Satan Saffron's only son, Alan, 59, says his father controlled the vice trade, including illegal gambling and prostitution, in every state except Tasmania and the Northern Territory, and bribed a host of politicians and policemen to ensure he was protected.

At one stage, the American "Mob" tried to persuade Saffron to operate a casino in Las Vegas on its behalf, but his father declined, he said.

Mr Saffron details his father's "excellent business relationship and long-standing friendship" with Askin and the police commissioner of the day, Norm Allan, who died in 1977. Questions were asked about the size of Askin's estate, almost $2 million, when he died in 1981. Askin was knighted in 1972, while he was premier.

"There have been many accounts of my father's relationship with these two men but none realised the depth of his association and influence. Both were totally corrupt and my father's excellent business brain and complete integrity in his dealings with them allowed him to exploit their greed to its fullest," he writes.

It's really hard to stomach this sort of criminality where top elected officials are on the take, but there you go. The pay offs were $5,000 to $10,000 per week in 1970s money. Just think about the enormity of such sums. Why wouldn't a cop go on the take?
Compared to that, you sort of wonder why blackmail photos of Princess Margaret having an orgy in the Carribean is such a big deal.

A Nice Touch
At one point, Terry falls into a burial cavern that dates to 1665 - the year of the Great plague of London. It's poignant to recognise history is everywhere in a town like London.

The nice touch they missed is this: Sherlock Holmes' office was on the corner of Baker Street and Marylebone Road - something that was not missed by the real robbers who spray-painted: "Let Sherlock Holmes try to solve this."