'Bank' does the job nicely

British actor Jason Statham in a scene from The Bank Job. Photo supplied.
British actor Jason Statham in a scene from The Bank Job. Photo supplied.
It has been a long day at the office, filled with mind-numbing meetings.

You're in the mood for an action flick, something that isn't too mentally taxing but isn't dumb, either.

The solution is simple. The Bank Job, which opens in theatres on Thursday.

The British movie, based on the true story of London's 1971 Baker St bank robbery, is sexy and diverting, but just sophisticated enough to let viewers experience its pleasures without feeling any guilt.

Starring Jason Statham, the film delivers on all the promises of any bank-heist picture - an ingenious scheme to break into the vault, a Champagne-soaked celebration upon discovering all that loot and, inevitably, the thieves' sobering realisation that they are in way over their heads.

A 35-year-old former professional diver with a background in martial arts, Statham has built his career on playing morally ambiguous characters, in films such as Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and The Transporter.

"The good bad guy - I like that title," Statham said.

"Everyone likes the good bad guy, because he's a bad guy but with a heart."

In The Bank Job - directed by New Zealander Roger Donaldson - Statham plays small-time crook Terry Leather, who attempts the theft of a lifetime with a band of amateur crooks.

Despite stealing millions of pounds worth of valuables from a London bank, Leather and co end up being the most innocent people involved in the incident.

"He's a father and a family man, a husband, and he's doing it for them, which is always very chivalrous," Statham says.

"This is a guy with a real sense of wanting to do the right thing.

And he leads this bunch of silly old friends of his who are not exactly the best bunch of crooks, but I think it all adds to the charm."

The film is based on the daring 1971 robbery - reportedly England's largest ever - which became known as the "walkie-talkie robbery".

Statham calls the film a "sophisticated thriller", but ironically there's nothing sophisticated about the methods employed by the robbers in the 1971 incident.

Unlike modern films, where the criminals are dependent on hi-tech gadgetry and use computers to hack into security systems, the "walkie talkie" thieves used basic tools to dig a 15m tunnel into the vault of the Baker St bank from the shop next door.

"For a bunch of boys with buckets, chisels, picks and shovels - it's like The Great Escape, isn't it?" Statham says.

"Robberies like that never really happen now, because with CCTV and all the technology that's around in banks it's impossible to even do some kind of recce."

Donaldson managed to track down some of the men involved in the original robbery, who were given new identities and have been in hiding for years.

The filmmaker convinced one of the men to have dinner with him, and persuaded him to share some of the secrets of the case.

"One of the interesting questions we asked the fellow who came to the set - he who shall remain nameless - was how do they figure out where they were going to dig the hole?" Statham says.

"And he says, `You know, we'd go in there with the bowler hats and the umbrellas and we'd open a security box and we'd measure with an umbrella across the floor how many umbrellas it would take until you were right in the middle of the bank'.

"You'd never be able to do that now. So there's something quite cool about these old-fashioned robberies."

Despite having worked with some of the biggest names in show business, Statham says he was a bit nervous to meet the men behind the infamous incident.

"They could be quite [angry] about it. But we got nothing but positive feedback from them guys." - Jen Chaney and Alyssa Braithwaite

The Bank Job opens in theatres on Thursday.

 

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