The Bank Job: Difference between revisions
Minor copy edits and fixes. Identify a bit of synthesis. |
|||
Line 101: | Line 101: | ||
The film's producers said that they have an inside source, identified in press reports as [[George McIndoe]], who served as an executive producer.<ref>{{cite news | last = Lawrence | first = Will | title = Revisiting the riddle of Baker Street |work=The Daily Telegraph | date = 15 February 2008 | url = http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/15/bfbankjob15.xml | accessdate =17 March 2008 | location=London}}</ref> The film's plot point of the issuance of a D-Notice, because a safe deposit box held sex pictures of [[Princess Margaret]] with London gangster-turned-actor [[John Bindon]], is entirely fictional. The possible connection to [[Michael X]] is apparently based on information provided by McIndoe, though the basis and extent of his information remains unclear. The film-makers acknowledged that they made up the character Martine, and David Denby in ''The New Yorker'' wrote that it is "impossible to say how much of the film's story is true".<ref>{{cite news | last = Denby | first = David | title = Class Acts: "The Bank Job" and "The Duchess of Langeais" |work=The New Yorker | date = 10 March 2008 | url = http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2008/03/10/080310crci_cinema_denby | accessdate =17 March 2008}}</ref> |
The film's producers said that they have an inside source, identified in press reports as [[George McIndoe]], who served as an executive producer.<ref>{{cite news | last = Lawrence | first = Will | title = Revisiting the riddle of Baker Street |work=The Daily Telegraph | date = 15 February 2008 | url = http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/15/bfbankjob15.xml | accessdate =17 March 2008 | location=London}}</ref> The film's plot point of the issuance of a D-Notice, because a safe deposit box held sex pictures of [[Princess Margaret]] with London gangster-turned-actor [[John Bindon]], is entirely fictional. The possible connection to [[Michael X]] is apparently based on information provided by McIndoe, though the basis and extent of his information remains unclear. The film-makers acknowledged that they made up the character Martine, and David Denby in ''The New Yorker'' wrote that it is "impossible to say how much of the film's story is true".<ref>{{cite news | last = Denby | first = David | title = Class Acts: "The Bank Job" and "The Duchess of Langeais" |work=The New Yorker | date = 10 March 2008 | url = http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2008/03/10/080310crci_cinema_denby | accessdate =17 March 2008}}</ref> |
||
The fictitious character of Lew Vogel may in part allude to pornographer and racketeer [[Bernie Silver]],<ref>Paul Byrnes, [http://www.smh.com.au/news/film-reviews/the-bank-job/2008/07/25/1216492719757.html Review: The Bank Job], Sydney Morning Herald, 25 July 2008</ref> a key figure in Soho in the 1960s and early 1970s, who was jailed in 1975 for the 1956 murder of Tommy "Scarface" Smithson; and also to later events surrounding his associate the real-life pornographer James Humphreys. After an outcry in 1972 when the ''[[Sunday People]]'' published photographs of the head of the Metropolitan Police [[Flying Squad]], Commander Kenneth Drury, spending a luxurious two-week holiday with |
The fictitious character of Lew Vogel may in part allude to pornographer and racketeer [[Bernie Silver]],<ref>Paul Byrnes, [http://www.smh.com.au/news/film-reviews/the-bank-job/2008/07/25/1216492719757.html Review: The Bank Job], Sydney Morning Herald, 25 July 2008</ref> a key figure in Soho in the 1960s and early 1970s, who was jailed in 1975 for the 1956 murder of Tommy "Scarface" Smithson; and also to later events surrounding his associate the real-life pornographer James Humphreys. After an outcry in 1972 when the ''[[Sunday People]]'' published photographs of the head of the Metropolitan Police [[Flying Squad]], Commander Kenneth Drury, spending a luxurious two-week holiday with Humphreys and their wives in Cyprus, a police raid on Humphreys' house uncovered a wallsafe containing a diary cataloguing detailed itemised payments to seventeen different officers. Humphreys was jailed for eight years in 1974 for wounding his wife's former lover. He then turned [[Queen's Evidence]], testifying against some of Scotland Yard's most senior officers in two major corruption trials in 1977; for which he received a [[Royal Pardon]] and was released from prison.<ref>Barry Cox, John Shirley, and Martin Short (1977). ''The Fall of Scotland Yard''. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-052318-9.</ref> In 1994 Humphreys was jailed for twelve months for living off the earnings of prostitutes.<ref>[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/emperor-of-porn-jailed-for-running-prostitution-ring-1410982.html 'Emperor of porn' jailed for running prostitution ring], ''[[The Independent]]'', 2 July 1994</ref><ref>Andrew Weir, [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/jimmy-and-rusty-it-was-a-small-event-at-southwark-and-it-ended-in-small-jail-sentences-but-jimmy-humphreys-in-better-days-right-was-a-caesar-of-soho-and-his-wife-rusty-an-empress-of-vice-when-they-come-out-how-will-they-supplement-their-pensions-report-andrew-weir-1411438.html Jimmy and Rusty], ''[[The Independent]]'', 4 July 1994</ref> |
||
The major political sex scandal of the period was the resignation of [[Antony Lambton|Lord Lambton]] in 1973. Again the circumstances were somewhat different from those shown in the film. Lambton resigned after a photograph was circulated around Fleet Street by the husband of one of two prostitutes he was shown in bed with, smoking marijuana; along with more photographs of other "prominent people".<ref name="telegraph lambton">[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1450674/Vigorous-gardening-and-debauchery-Lord-Lambtons-recipe-for-a-busier-life.html Vigorous gardening and debauchery: Lord Lambton's recipe for a busier life], [[Daily Telegraph]], 1 January 2004</ref><ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2007/jan/02/guardianobituaries.obituaries Obituary: Lord Lambton], ''[[The Guardian]]'', 2 January 2007</ref> The prostitute, Norma Levy, did specialise in sado-masochism as a dominatrix, but remembers Lambton as being "relatively straight", and if anything more interested in the marijuana.<ref name="norma_levy">David Jones, [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-431781/Call-girl-nearly-toppled-government-reveals-all.html "Call girl who nearly toppled a government reveals all"], ''Daily Mail'', 26 January 2007</ref> She had been introduced to Lambton in July 1972 by upmarket madame Jean Horn.<ref name="telegraph lambton" /> The affair was subsequently investigated by DCS Bert Wickstead of the Serious Crime Squad, who had also led the investigations into Silver and Humphreys.<ref>[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1327680/Cdr-Bert-Wickstead.html Obituary: Cdr Bert Wickstead], ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 24 March 2001</ref><ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2001/mar/27/guardianobituaries.duncancampbell Obituary: Bert Wickstead], ''[[The Guardian]]'', 27 March 2001</ref> A confusion led to the additional resignation of another minister, [[George Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe|Lord Jellicoe]], although he had not been directly connected with Levy. |
The major political sex scandal of the period was the resignation of [[Antony Lambton|Lord Lambton]] in 1973. Again the circumstances were somewhat different from those shown in the film. Lambton resigned after a photograph was circulated around Fleet Street by the husband of one of two prostitutes he was shown in bed with, smoking marijuana; along with more photographs of other "prominent people".<ref name="telegraph lambton">[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1450674/Vigorous-gardening-and-debauchery-Lord-Lambtons-recipe-for-a-busier-life.html Vigorous gardening and debauchery: Lord Lambton's recipe for a busier life], [[Daily Telegraph]], 1 January 2004</ref><ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2007/jan/02/guardianobituaries.obituaries Obituary: Lord Lambton], ''[[The Guardian]]'', 2 January 2007</ref> The prostitute, Norma Levy, did specialise in sado-masochism as a dominatrix, but remembers Lambton as being "relatively straight", and if anything more interested in the marijuana.<ref name="norma_levy">David Jones, [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-431781/Call-girl-nearly-toppled-government-reveals-all.html "Call girl who nearly toppled a government reveals all"], ''Daily Mail'', 26 January 2007</ref> She had been introduced to Lambton in July 1972 by upmarket madame Jean Horn.<ref name="telegraph lambton" /> The affair was subsequently investigated by DCS Bert Wickstead of the Serious Crime Squad, who had also led the investigations into Silver and Humphreys.<ref>[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1327680/Cdr-Bert-Wickstead.html Obituary: Cdr Bert Wickstead], ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 24 March 2001</ref><ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2001/mar/27/guardianobituaries.duncancampbell Obituary: Bert Wickstead], ''[[The Guardian]]'', 27 March 2001</ref> A confusion led to the additional resignation of another minister, [[George Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe|Lord Jellicoe]], although he had not been directly connected with Levy. |
Revision as of 22:54, 20 September 2015
The Bank Job | |
---|---|
![]() Promotional film poster | |
Directed by | Roger Donaldson |
Written by | |
Produced by |
|
Starring | |
Cinematography | Michael Coulter |
Edited by | John Gilbert |
Music by | J. Peter Robinson |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | Lionsgate Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 111 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | US$30 million[1] |
Box office | US$64.8 million[2] |
The Bank Job is a 2008 British crime film written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, directed by Roger Donaldson, and starring Jason Statham, based on the 1971 Baker Street robbery in central London, from which the money and valuables stolen were never recovered. The producers allege that the story was prevented from being told in 1971 because of a D-Notice government gagging request, allegedly to protect a prominent member of the British Royal Family.[3][4] According to the producers, this film is intended to reveal the truth for the first time,[5] although it includes significant elements of fiction.
The premiere was held in London on 18 February 2008, and the film was released in both the UK on 29 February 2008, and in the US on 7 March 2008. It was a critical and financial success.
Plot synopsis
The British Security Services (MI5) have taken interest in a safe deposit box located in a bank on London’s Baker Street. It belongs to a black militant gangster, Michael X, and contains compromising photos of Princess Margaret,[6] which he is keeping as insurance to keep the British authorities off his back. Martine, an ex-model who is romantically involved with an MI5 agent, is caught smuggling drugs into the country, and to avoid going to jail she makes a deal with the authorities in which she agrees to retrieve the photos.
Martine approaches her friend Terry, a struggling car salesman with criminal contacts, and tells him if he can assemble the gang to help her rob the bank he'll be richly rewarded, though she doesn't tell him about the photos in the deposit box. Terry recruits a small team, including one of his own workers, Eddie, to serve as the look-out, and Dave, a porn actor who once made films for Lew Vogel, a gangster whom Dave happens to run into outside the bank before the robbery.
The gang tunnels their way into the bank vault, where they steal money and other valuables, but Terry is suspicious when he notices that Martine only seems to be interested in one box containing nothing but photographs. After they escape together, Terry throws off a pursuit by MI5. By now the police have been alerted to the robbery by a ham radio operator who has picked up the "chatter" from the gang's walkie-talkies, and Lew learns that among the missing safe deposit boxes is his own box, which is full of evidence about his payoffs to crooked cops. He notifies a furious Michael X in Trinidad, who correctly suspects Gale Benson, the lover of a fellow militant, of spying for MI5, and subsequently murders her. Vogel decides that Dave’s presence outside that particular bank was not a coincidence, and has him tortured for information. Dave gives in, and Lew goes to Terry’s garage to kidnap Eddie. Meanwhile, a government minister learns that he is also featured in some of the stolen photos, and persuades MI5 to give the robbers new passports and safe passage in exchange for the photos in order to avoid a scandal.
One of the crooked cops on Lew's payroll shoots Dave, and threatens to shoot Eddie unless Vogel gets his evidence back. Terry agrees to deliver it to him at Paddington station at the same time he is supposed to be picking up his new passports from MI5, but has meanwhile passed on the details to an honest cop, Roy, who alerts MI5 agents. During the exchange, Lew recognises the agents, and he and the corrupt cops make a run for it. Terry pursues Lew and proceeds to beat him up, but Roy breaks up the fight and arrests Lew and his colleagues. In Trinidad, Michael X is also arrested. With his freedom and his new passport, Terry and his family are seen enjoying a carefree life on their small motor yacht off a sunny beach.
According to the epilogue, the corrupt police officers on Vogel's payroll were duly investigated, and Michael X was hanged for Gale Benson's murder. It also says that Michael X's personal files are to be kept hidden until 2054 and that £4 million worth of property was stolen. Vogel was imprisoned for eight years for crimes unrelated to the robbery. At least 100 safe deposit box owners have neither claimed insurance nor identified the items in their boxes.
Cast
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f2/Bankjob_street_set.jpg/220px-Bankjob_street_set.jpg)
- Jason Statham – Terry Leather
- Saffron Burrows – Martine Love
- Richard Lintern – Tim Everett
- Keeley Hawes – Wendy Leather
- Stephen Campbell Moore – Kevin Swain
- Michael Jibson – Eddie Burton
- Georgia Taylor – Ingrid Burton
- Daniel Mays – Dave Shilling
- David Suchet – Lew Vogel
- Peter de Jersey – Michael Abdul Malik a.k.a. Michael X
- Gerard Horan – Det. Sgt. Roy Given
- Don Gallagher – Det. Con. Gerald Pyke
- Craig Fairbrass – Det. Con. Nick Barton
- Peter Bowles – MI5 Executive Director Miles Urquhart
- James Faulkner – "Major" Guy Arthur Singer
- Alki David – Bambas
- Robert Whitelock – Alfie Hook
- Julian Lewis Jones – Agent Snow
- Andrew Brooke – Agent Quinn
- Sharon Maughan – Sonia Bern
- Colin Salmon – Hakim Jamal
- Alistair Petrie – Philip Lisle
- Hattie Morahan – Gale Benson
- Rupert Frazer as Lord Drysdale
- Christopher Owen – Lord Mountbatten of Burma
- Angus Wright – Eric Addey, Ham Radio Operator
- Les Kenny-Green – Pinky
- Jamie Kenna – Perky
- Taylor Samways – Catherine Leather
- Dillon McFarlane - Son
- Mick Jagger – bank employee (uncredited cameo)
Historical background
![]() | This section possibly contains synthesis of material which does not verifiably mention or relate to the main topic. (September 2015) |
The film is in part based on historical facts about the Baker Street robbery. A gang tunneled into a branch of Lloyds Bank at the junction of Baker Street and Marylebone Road, in London, on the night of 11 September 1971 and robbed the safe deposit boxes that were stored in the vault. The robbers had rented a leather goods shop named Le Sac two doors down from the bank, and tunneled a distance of approximately 40 feet (12 metres), passing under the Chicken Inn restaurant that was located between the shop and the bank.[4]
Robert Rowlands, a ham radio operator, overheard conversations between the robbers and their rooftop lookout. He contacted police and tape-recorded the conversations, which were subsequently made public. The film includes lines recorded by Rowlands, such as the lookout's comment that "Money may be your god, but it's not mine, and I'm fucking off."[7]
The film's producers said that they have an inside source, identified in press reports as George McIndoe, who served as an executive producer.[8] The film's plot point of the issuance of a D-Notice, because a safe deposit box held sex pictures of Princess Margaret with London gangster-turned-actor John Bindon, is entirely fictional. The possible connection to Michael X is apparently based on information provided by McIndoe, though the basis and extent of his information remains unclear. The film-makers acknowledged that they made up the character Martine, and David Denby in The New Yorker wrote that it is "impossible to say how much of the film's story is true".[9]
The fictitious character of Lew Vogel may in part allude to pornographer and racketeer Bernie Silver,[10] a key figure in Soho in the 1960s and early 1970s, who was jailed in 1975 for the 1956 murder of Tommy "Scarface" Smithson; and also to later events surrounding his associate the real-life pornographer James Humphreys. After an outcry in 1972 when the Sunday People published photographs of the head of the Metropolitan Police Flying Squad, Commander Kenneth Drury, spending a luxurious two-week holiday with Humphreys and their wives in Cyprus, a police raid on Humphreys' house uncovered a wallsafe containing a diary cataloguing detailed itemised payments to seventeen different officers. Humphreys was jailed for eight years in 1974 for wounding his wife's former lover. He then turned Queen's Evidence, testifying against some of Scotland Yard's most senior officers in two major corruption trials in 1977; for which he received a Royal Pardon and was released from prison.[11] In 1994 Humphreys was jailed for twelve months for living off the earnings of prostitutes.[12][13]
The major political sex scandal of the period was the resignation of Lord Lambton in 1973. Again the circumstances were somewhat different from those shown in the film. Lambton resigned after a photograph was circulated around Fleet Street by the husband of one of two prostitutes he was shown in bed with, smoking marijuana; along with more photographs of other "prominent people".[14][15] The prostitute, Norma Levy, did specialise in sado-masochism as a dominatrix, but remembers Lambton as being "relatively straight", and if anything more interested in the marijuana.[16] She had been introduced to Lambton in July 1972 by upmarket madame Jean Horn.[14] The affair was subsequently investigated by DCS Bert Wickstead of the Serious Crime Squad, who had also led the investigations into Silver and Humphreys.[17][18] A confusion led to the additional resignation of another minister, Lord Jellicoe, although he had not been directly connected with Levy.
The claims made in the film's epilogue are not all accurate. Michael X was not tried and executed for the murder of Gale Benson, but of another commune member by the name of Joseph Skerritt who was found buried along with Gale. It is also not true that Michael X's personal files are to be kept hidden until 2054.[19]
Part of the filming took place on location at the offices of Websters, 136 Baker Street where the rooftops were actually used for lookout purposes. The majority of outside shots, namely shots including the bank and adjacent shops, were done on a specially constructed set of Baker Street, to retain an authentic feel of the period and to allow for greater control of visible elements. This partial set was extended using VFX by the Australian company Iloura.[20][21]
Production
The production crew visited the Historic Dockyard in Chatham to shoot the sequence at the side entrance of London Paddington Station where the final showdown between Terry and Lew Vogel takes place.[22]
Reception
The film was well received by critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 79% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 142 reviews. The consensus reads: "Well cast and crisply directed, The Bank Job is a thoroughly entertaining British heist thriller."[23] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 69 out of 100, based on 32 reviews.[24]
Box office performance
The film grossed US$64.8 million on a $20,000,000 budget.[25] The film opened at No. 4 in North America and grossed US$5,935,256 in 1,603 theaters, averaging to about US$3,703 per cinema.[26]
Soundtrack
- "Get It On" – T. Rex
- "Lola" – The Kinks
- "Hey There" – The Basics
- "Money (That's What I Want)" – The Storys, seen early in the film as the wedding band
- "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress" – The Hollies
- "In the Midnight Hour" – Wilson Pickett
- "Gunshot" – Anthony Johnson
References
- ^ "The Bank Job Box Office Data". The Numbers. Nash Information Services. Retrieved 8 October 2011.
- ^ "The Bank Job (2008)". Box Office Mojo. 5 June 2008. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
- ^ Thorpe, Vanessa (11 March 2007). "Untold story of Baker Street bank robbery". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
- ^ a b "Bank job that opened the door on a royal sex scandal". Daily Mirror. 16 February 2008.
- ^ Production Information, Lionsgate UK website, Accessed 9 January 2008
- ^ "How MI5 raided a bank to get pictures of Princess Margaret", Evening Standard, 20 May 2007
- ^ Hoyle, Antonia (16 February 2008). "FOUND: Radio Ham's sensational tape of the bank heist 'that rescued compromising pictures of Princess Margaret'". Daily Mail. Retrieved 17 March 2008.
- ^ Lawrence, Will (15 February 2008). "Revisiting the riddle of Baker Street". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 17 March 2008.
- ^ Denby, David (10 March 2008). "Class Acts: "The Bank Job" and "The Duchess of Langeais"". The New Yorker. Retrieved 17 March 2008.
- ^ Paul Byrnes, Review: The Bank Job, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 July 2008
- ^ Barry Cox, John Shirley, and Martin Short (1977). The Fall of Scotland Yard. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-052318-9.
- ^ 'Emperor of porn' jailed for running prostitution ring, The Independent, 2 July 1994
- ^ Andrew Weir, Jimmy and Rusty, The Independent, 4 July 1994
- ^ a b Vigorous gardening and debauchery: Lord Lambton's recipe for a busier life, Daily Telegraph, 1 January 2004
- ^ Obituary: Lord Lambton, The Guardian, 2 January 2007
- ^ David Jones, "Call girl who nearly toppled a government reveals all", Daily Mail, 26 January 2007
- ^ Obituary: Cdr Bert Wickstead, The Daily Telegraph, 24 March 2001
- ^ Obituary: Bert Wickstead, The Guardian, 27 March 2001
- ^ The National Archives catalogue shows six files relating to Michael X, all of which were made public before the film was made. Unreleased files appear in the catalogue while still restricted, but there is none such relating to Michael X.
- ^ "The Bank Job. Making Of". iloura. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011.
- ^ "The Bank Job. About". iloura. Archived from the original on 3 October 2009.
- ^ Kent Film Office. "Kent Film Office The Bank Job Film Focus".
- ^ "The Bank Job Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 31 December 2008.
- ^ "The Bank Job Reviews, Ratings, Credits". Metacritic. Retrieved 7 March 2008.
- ^ "The Bank Job (2008)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 11 June 2008.
- ^ "The Bank Job (2008) – Weekend Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 10 March 2008.
External links
- 2008 films
- 2000s crime films
- British films
- British crime films
- British drama films
- English-language films
- Docudramas
- Films directed by Roger Donaldson
- Films set in 1971
- Films set in London
- Films set in Trinidad and Tobago
- Heist films
- Lions Gate Entertainment films
- Paramount Pictures films
- Relativity Media films
- Atlas Entertainment films