Movie Monday: The Italian Job Review

Ahhh. Another Monday, and I am back behind my grey desk at work. Since I have a meeting to go to in about 15 minutes, I thought I'd share with you all some of my observations while watching The Italian Job yesterday. Yet another remake (or reimagining, if you're Tim Burton) of a previous film, The Italian Job is a decent popcorn flick with some likeable characters, so-so acting and madcap Mini racing action. Right, so that's the sum of it. You can go catch it now if you like, or you can hang around and read the rest of my review :-P

Director F. Gary Gray took some great risks in adapting the Michael Caine original for this new outing. I was very young when I saw the Brit classic for the first time, and I can remember only bits and pieces of it. But don't worry for you absolutely have no need of any knowledge of the former to enjoy this one. The story revolves around a motley gang of thieves led by John Bridges (Donald Sutherland) who specialise in pulling off extremely well planned heists. The other members of the crew are Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg), Handsome Rob (Jason Statham), Left Ear (Mos Def), Lyle The Napster (Seth Green, to great comic effect) and Steve (Edward Norton, being his usual bad self). The premise is simple enough. Charlie assembles the team for one final job: 35 million dollars worth of gold bricks in Venice. They pull it off perfectly with no hitches except for one thing: Steve decides to keep the gold for himself. After killing John and forcing the others to a watery grave, he then escapes. What follows is your standard revenge tale. The surviving members of the team recruit Bridges' daughter, Stella who is conveniently an excellent safecracker (played by Charlize Theron), hatch a plan to get the gold and get back at Steve. In between we've got the obligatory blossoming romance between Charlie and Stella, expository banter between various members of the crew (such as how Lyle is the real Napster) and of course the infamous Mini Cooper chase scenes.

Overall, the movie is a tight little package, with good editing and a nice clean wrapup in the end. Which is perhaps one of its biggest flaws: the whole film's a bit too neat, in this reviewer's opinion. There's never a sense of the characters being in real danger, and everything flows a little too smoothly for my liking. Of course, you could argue that it's because Charlie's such a master planner..so it's really up to the viewer how much he wants to suspend his disbelief.

The acting's pretty much two dimensional, but serviceable. You've got the explosives expert, the cool-leader with a conscience (Wahlberg reminds me so much of his role in The Big Hit), the Brit hero driver, and the uber geek (Green). All in all, it has to be said that Seth Green really steals the show here. His comedic relief is well done and provides a good counterpoint to all the macho/cool posturing the rest of the team provides. Theron and Wahlberg don't exactly send sparks flying, but as I said, they're OK.

All in all, the Italian Job is an alright popcorn flick that should have made it here months ago. It's not as empty headed as Full Throttle, but the action (and the cool Minis) should tide any moviegoer's appetite for fun at least till the next LOTR sequel comes along. Sit back and let Charlie's crew take you for a (mostly) enjoyable ride.

The Ox gives The Italian Job a 3.5 out of 5.