Italian Job

Ok so someone had to go and I’ll tell you, there were arguments about this mainly due to the fond memories me and Morton have of the original 1969 classic of the same name with Michael Cain and gang, 3 minis, a traffic jam, Italy and some gold among other things. So obviously neither of us wanted our memory tarnished by another rubbish remake. In the end I gave in and with that trudged to the UGC for what I fully believed to be 2 hours of mindless drivel ripping up a classic. So what do we have, no Cain but at least we get Norton who has to be one of the best actors of this generation, I was never a great fan of Cain anyways so no loss there. Wahlberg as the leader of a band of thieves, inside man Steve (Norton), computer genius Lyle (Green), wheelman handsome Rob (Statham), explosives expert Left-Ear (Mos Def) and safecracker John Bridger (Sutherland). It all starts in Italy with a $35 million gold heist but that quickly moves to Los Angeles after Norton double cross the team and takes all the gold for himself. We’ve still got 3 mini’s but this time it’s out with the old and in with the new which are used in a plan to re-steal the gold with the help of Stella Bridger (Theron) Johns daughter and a traffic jam. So, most of the stuff from the original is in there in some form or other however they don’t try to copy the original verbatim.

The plot holds together very well with the only real weak point being we never really understand why Norton does the double cross other than the obvious wanting all the cash for him self but for some reason that never gelled with me. The characters are developed to decent level and the film actually builds rather well to the final chase scene, with a frantic dash in the mini’s through traffic jammed streets and subways of LA and the final showdown between Norton and Wahlberg.

I went to this film with the original glaring in my mind demanding I hate the movie, I couldn’t quite bring myself to dislike it never mind actually hate it. Yes it is a remake but not all remakes are bad in fact many of them are technically superior, ok this isn’t technically superior but it’s a worthy heist movie with a lot of the originals content but a story of it own and satisfied my Monday night boredom. So I guess what I’m saying is forget about how good the original is and go see this if you like any of the main actors or heist movies in general. You could do a lot worse!