By Claude Mills, Staff Reporter
From left: Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron and Jason Statham in the 'The Italian Job'. - Contributed
YOU'VE SEEN it all before, the contemporary caper film where a talented dream team of crooked techno-wizards are locked into a grab-the-money-and-boogie race against time which involves witty one-liners, a romantic interlude and a spectacular chase or two.
Yes, so maybe you've seen an incarnation of The Italian Job before, but this one is well worth the price of admission.
In the opening sequence, set in Venice, the gang, led by John Bridger (Donald Sutherland), a suave criminal mastermind in the twilight of his career, makes off with a safe containing US$35 million in gold ingots (bars), making good their escape in a fantastic, swooping boat chase through the gondola-lined canals of Venice.
BETRAYAL AND DEATH
The heist is successful but betrayal and death lie in the cards. Minutes after swilling champagne atop a snow-capped mountain peak, and dreaming of what shiny goodies their ill-gotten gains will buy, one of their own double-crosses them, and Bridger gets whacked by Steve Frezelli (Edward Norton).
Bridger's protégé, Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg), brainy computer-hacker Lyle (Seth Green), munitions specialist Left Ear (Mos Def) and Handsome Rob (Jason Statham), an English race-car whiz, are presumably drowned.
Is there no honour among thieves?
However (surprise, surprise), they escape unharmed, setting up the suspense motor that drives the rest of the movie revenge and just desserts for the traitor who betrayed them.
The rest of the movie is beautifully paced, good acting, impeccable comic timing and superbly choreographed chase sequences through the streets of Los Angeles, where Frezelli has relocated with his US$35 million windfall.
GETTING PERSONAL
There's enough character detail to give you a slightly more than skin deep acquaintance with the 'heroes'.
The best comedic moments are provided by Lyle (Seth Green), a brainy computer nerd still smarting from his college roommate's theft of his idea for Napster, and Left Ear (Mos Def) who lost the hearing in said ear after an ill-fated bomb experiment in his grade school lavatory. Charlie is the brains behind the operation, and Stella, a professional safecracker, is obsessed with exacting revenge on the man who killed her father.
NORTON'S POWER PUNCH
However, for me it is Edward Norton's character has the most emotional punch. With his shifty, deep-set eyes that don't quite focus, the crummy gold-watch fake naiveté, and the stammering self-confidence, he is the impresario of playing the coiled psychopath with the poorly-chained anger reflex. Remember that breakthrough performance in Primal Fear? Norton can play the died-in-the-wool S.O.B with an ease most actors envy.
The only niggling concern I have with the movie is that all the criminals are portrayed as daffy but likeable imps who do what they do because they have the unique abilities for this sort of high larceny, for the sheer thrill of the ride, and, oh yes, the money.
All in all, The Italian Job is a remarkably sleek remake of the 1969 film starring Michael Caine and Noel Coward and it opens today. Directed by F. Gary Gray, it is a real heist movie gem.
Go see it. You'll like it. You won't feel like you've just been robbed.
