The Italian Job review by John
So essentially The Italian Job is about stealing stuff. Distilled down, all we have here is an ensemble cast and a thief movie. Sure you could say 'its been done' and just dismiss this one, but you would be missing some quality entertainment. Of course this movie has it downsides, what movie doesn't. There is one bit near the beginning of the movie where there is an inconsistancy in the editing. There are poorly executed one -liners through out(Why not let the comedy relief character have all the one-lineres? That is your best shot for good comedy). And of course there is the Hollywood physics which just basically makes no sense, but looks cool on the silver screen. Basically what you have here is a movie that has no real high points to speak of, but very few points that are so low that you leave the theatre wanting your money back.The movie starts with the old wise thief calling his daughter (the prototypical movie super hottie daughter). We move on to the meeting between the young hotshot thief and the old wise thief. They chat a little about the job and you are basically slapped in the face with the fact that they are very close.
Moving on to the actual job which they were discussing we are introduced to the remainder of the cast. And since this is the beginning of the movie they quickly and easily: dupe the inept guards, break open the safe, and steal the gold. There is a little boat chase scene here that is for the most part unexciting but does well to break up the slower pace of the dramatic aspects of the story.
We move on to the next scene which is the double cross scene. Basically the old thief gets shot by the double crosser and to save the rest of the group the driver of the van tries to get away but drives the car off the bridge cause he couldn't get around another car on the road. All of the movie up to this point basically sets the stage for the story. In a nut shell the young theif wants to get revenge on this guy and get the 35 million dollars in gold back, though he keeps saying that it isnt about the money.
There are no real plot twists here. Basically the young thief propositions the hottie to crack the safe with the money in it so that they can get back at the double crosser. With her on the team they can now do this. Despite one minor set back the team gets to the safe opens it and takes the gold back amid some more action.
As I mentioned before there are a few things that get on your nerves here. For example, the hottie safe cracker has to revert back to the way that her dad, the old thief, used to crack safes - by touch. And then there is the Mini Cooper that goes nose down as it jumps out of the tunnel despite the fact that it has a half ton or more of gold in the back of it. These are just nit-picky types of things though and even though there are more I don't think that they detract from the story. With this movie you get decent acting, decent comedy, decent action, and decent drama. The story may be a little derivative but is there anything in Hollywood that isn't? I don't feel that anything really stands out here but at the same time there is no anchor to drag it down either.
5 out of 10 Jackasses blog comments powered by Disqus
