The Italian Job… It’s a Mini Adventure!

Yup, it’s time for another Big Screen Blog review and after the  vaguely high brow “Fight Club” from last month, I thought we’d settle down and have something simple and straight forward, the remake of the Italian Job.

The film begins with a heist, in Venice, Italy, however the majority of the story is about the fallout after “The Italian Job”. Baddie Steve (Edward Norton) turns on the team and takes the gold, shooting old timer John (Donald Sutherland) who was just part of the team for that elusive “one last job” and dumping the rest of the team, spearhead by Charlie (Mark Wahlberg) into a frozen river.

The team tracks down Steve, who is living it large and they make a plan to retrieve their stolen gold. Joining forces with John Bridges bereaved daughter, the beautiful Charilze Theron, Stella, who it turns out works for the police, cracking safes, they make a plan to take back the gold.

However the plan goes south and the team is forced to improvise a new plan. Steve is onto them by this point but Charlie is always one step ahead. The whole thing comes down to an exciting chase across the city with three Mini Coopers loaded with gold and a helicopter. What more could you want?

I’ll be honest, the film doesn’t have much of a plot beyond that. A group of men steal some gold, one turns on the others, they get him back, job done. However the whole thing is nicely executed. If for example Tarantino had directed this movie the whole thing would have ended in a blood bath, with just Mark Walhburg or possibly Jason Stratham, walking away from camera, a bag over his shoulder loaded with cash and a bloodied samurai sword dripping in his other hand. Instead, however, barely a shot was fired and no one died, apart from poor old Donald Sutherland, but we’ll let them off there, because the new team member was decidedly better looking.

This film really followed in the footsteps of its predecessor Ocean’s Eleven (2001). Everything from the star studded cast to the soundtrack reminded me of that movie and that is a good thing. If Oceans Twelve had felt anything like The Italian Job, I would have been happy (instead of bored). I don't mind that the film has no real plot beyond taking back the gold. I don’t mind that the characters were pretty much one dimensional. Despite the fact that nearly everyone in the cast has been responsible for one or more of the worst cinematic experiences of my life (Max Payne, Crank, In the Name of the King, to name but a few) I really enjoyed this film.

I am a big Seth Green fan and he played his part perfectly, delivering the laughs when we needed them. Charilze did a great job of looking fantastic, while Wahlburg and Statham kept us engaged with beautiful actions sequences and Mos Def blew stuff up and that’s great too! In fact only Norton let me down, his portrayal of Steve was a little clichéd, a little over the top and while it is the nature of films like these, I had hoped he could play the role with a little more subtlety.

All in all The Italian Job is just enjoyable, high budget, reasonably well scripted piece of light entertainment, choc full of those iconic Mini Coopers and plenty of action. It is the perfect piece of escapism for any Saturday afternoon.

Next time on My Two Cents: AEon Flux