The Italian Job

Before we get to the movie, let’s steal a peek at some previews. Hey, they can’t all be good.

LARA CROFT-TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE–A simple Tome Raider 2 would have sufficed, but this budding franchise is used to over-indulgence.

This time Jan de Bont tries his hand at making Lara a little more palatable to the silver screen. He can’t do much worse than Simon West did with the first one. That was nearly unwatchable.

I MAY see this one at a sneak or for a REALLY low matinee price. It depends on what I hear about it. I’m not very excited about it, though, other than the fact that Angelina Jolie looks freakin’ awesome in her costume. She’s the only woman who could play Lara Croft.

Too bad she has to do it in such awful movies.

SEABISCUIT–I’m still skeptical about this one, but I trust everyone involved. This was an actual preview (that I walked into the middle of) and it looks like a Big Oscar Movie. I’m sure it’ll be great, but I’m not really looking forward to a biopic of a horse, no matter how great of a runner he was.

Which, of course, won’t keep me from seeing it.

That’s all I can remember, so I guess I’ll have to motor on to the review.

But I’ll try to keep it a…mini?…review?

And I’ll stop now.

Charlie (Mark Wahlberg) is a big time thief who works for old-time thief John Bridger (Donald Sutherland) and his crew: explosives expert Left Ear (Mos Def), computer geek Lyle (Seth Green) and driver Handsome Rob (Jason Statham). John is priming Charlie to take over, but they all have to pull one last heist together before he retires. Unfortunately for John, he trusted the wrong person. Steve (Edward Norton) has a heist of his own to pull and he kills John (and he thinks all of the others) in the process.

One year later Charlie finds Steve and pulls the old team back together with one new addition: Stella Bridger (Charlize Theron). She is a safe cracker for the cops (don’t ask…I didn’t understand, either) and hadn’t wanted to see Charlie and his pals ever again. Now she has a chance to even the score with the man who killed him and took all of the over $40 million dollars worth of Italian gold that they stole together.

Now, I know what we’re all here for: the action and the heists. Yeah, all of the character dynamics are good and the performances are not too shabby. Wahlberg is better than he has been in years and so is Donald Sutherland in his short role. And, of course, Charlize is fucking beautiful. There were times that I had no clue what was going on because I was too busy staring at her. The only weak link, surprisingly, is Norton. He’s alright, but you can kind of tell that he didn’t care too much about the movie. (It was a contractual thing. He had NO interest in being in it and in fact fought to get out of it.) Eddie doesn’t do phoned in performances, but this one comes close.

But who cares? Is the action worth a damn?

Yeppers. It sho’ ‘nuf is. The titular job is pretty cool and the final LA job is even better. Especially when you consider that it features a small battalion of Mini-Coopers that have no business being able to do the things that they do. (Although it is explained that they had some modifications made to them by Wrench (Franky G).) It’s really cool to see them flying down the streets of LA away from a helicopter.

There’s some cheese to be had here, but overall the movie did its job: it made me want to buy a Mini-Cooper. (I know that as soon as the new ones made their debut on this side of the pond a whole bunch of movie execs were salivating to remake this movie. “Imagine the tie-ins!”)

Actually, it kept me interested and excited me a few times. That was its job: to entertain me. And it did. F. Gary Gray (The Negotiator, Friday, A Man Apart) knows how to make an action flick and I’ll be watching out for his next one. (Although I hear that A Man Apart blew. Oh well. Can’t win ‘em all.)

Watch for Napster Man Shawn Fanning playing himself and a quick glimpse of Michael Caine, star of the 1969 original. I haven’t seen that one yet, but I can’t wait to see Michael driving down the streets of London in his own original Mini. Unfortunately it probably isn’t half as exciting as this one. The British idea of action is at times pretty lame if it’s not attached to the name James Bond.