In 1971, a Lloyd’s bank in London was robbed. The story hit the headlines one day, and quickly died the next. In a blend of fact and fiction, The Bank Job offers an explanation.

The thieves were after safety deposit boxes, in which many people keep much more than money -- in some cases, incriminating evidence. A seductive woman, Martine Love (Saffron Burrows), is approached by a former boyfriend who now works for the government, and asked to contact some local burglars to set up a job. It seems that a certain African leader is keeping nude photos of Princess Margaret in his deposit box, and the royal family and the British government will sleep easier knowing they’ve been destroyed.

Martine goes to another ex (and ex-con), Terry Leather (Jason Statham), and asks him to set up the job. In typical heist-movie fashion they assemble a gang of colorful misfits, then take over a vacant store next door to the bank, planning to blast a tunnel between the buildings’ basements. They set to work, and discover a vault that connects the buildings -- a crypt built for London’s plague victims 400 years before. The job now seems like an outing in the park, but when the bank vault is breached, things turn nasty. It seems that Princess Margaret’s indiscretions weren’t the only dirty laundry hidden there, and suddenly, Terry and his crew are being hunted by good guys and bad guys.

Headliner Jason Statham doesn’t get an opportunity to do his trademark physical moves, as in the Transporter movies or Crank, but his presence is commanding in a tough/nice-guy way. And it’s not a stretch to think that someone might commit a crime when asked to by the gorgeous Saffron Burrows. The actors who portray the members of the gang, and the other heroes and villains, are all perfectly cast. David Suchet, who played detective Hercule Poirot to perfection in so many television episodes, is droll as a sleazy porn king. The government guys seem rather interchangeable. In fact, one comments that you can’t tell MI-5 from MI-6 (the British equivalents of our FBI and CIA.

The first two-thirds of The Bank Job meander a bit as they present the criminals: pretty nice guys looking to make a final score to pay their debts or retire in style. They’re so inept that it’s hard not to like them: When they start work, the police are called because their jackhammer makes so much noise. A ham radio operator picks up the robbers’ walkie-talkie communications, so the police know that some bank somewhere is being robbed, though not which one. (In fact, in the 1970s, the caper was called "The Walkie-Talkie Robbery.") Further bumbles include the lookout dropping his cell phone off the roof at a crucial juncture. This gang may be all thumbs, but they’re all heart as well.

In fact, I ended up caring enough about them that the film’s final third, in which the lives of most of the gang are in jeopardy, is taut and exciting -- genuinely edge-of-your-seat, fingernail-biting stuff. Had director Roger Donaldson tightened up the first two-thirds, the result might have joined the ranks of the great heist films of all time: Rififi, The Italian Job, even Inside Man. Instead, The Bank Job is a very entertaining movie that you’ll probably forget not long after you leave the theater. Like the historical robbery itself, news of it will be hushed, though not by royal decree.

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