Opens
Friday, May 30
"The Italian Job", a 1969 comic caper about a cunning plan to steal a gold shipment from the streets of Turin, gets translated into a muscular present-day actioner under the assured direction of F. Gary Gray. If the first film was big on quirky charm and heart -- it starred Michael Caine, Noel Coward and Benny Hill -- the new version opts for high-gloss style and forward momentum.
Scripters Donna Powers and Wayne Powers borrow two story elements from the original and run with them: the idea of creating a traffic jam in order to pull off a heist and the crucial use of a fleet of three Mini Coopers as stunt characters par excellence. This time around, the microcars are not only characters but a full-fledged marketing tie-in. Times have changed.
Less giddy and more cohesive than the original, the film doesn't waste time, plunging almost directly into a spectacular heist of $35 million in gold bullion that six men, working with digital precision, pull off in a Venice palazzo. The subsequent speedboat chase through the canals, the first of several sequences featuring vehicles performing only-in-the-movies feats, sets the bar for the film's power-propulsion sensibility. On the heels of the "X-Men" and "Matrix" sequels, this more earthbound adventure, with its appealing cast, will be a strong pull for summer audiences seeking high-velocity action.
The plot twists begin when, after a mountaintop toast to their success, five of the men fall victim to a double-cross on an icy road through the Alps, with their sour accomplice Steve (Edward Norton) stepping forward as the bad guy and killing the group's elder statesman, John Donald Sutherland). In a visual homage to the first film's cliffhanger ending, the men's van teeters on the edge of the road before plunging into a lake, where the remaining men share diving equipment to stay alive while Steve shoots away as though at fish in a barrel. Believing they're all dead, he takes off with his conspirators and the loot.
A year later, the gold bricks, marked with telltale Balinese dancers, surface in Los Angeles, and the group's leader, Charlie (Mark Wahlberg), enlists the help of John's daughter (Charlize Theron) in getting them back. Stella, who has inherited her father's knack for cracking safes but works with the law rather than against it, gives in to the desire to avenge John's death. Besides being a skilled safe technician, she's a menace with a Mini, pushing her little red car to extremes through everyday traffic, a talent that will come in handy during the final heist.
The group assembles in L.A. and organizes a scheme to steal the remaining gold from Steve's hilltop mansion. Gray and the writers keep psychologizing to a minimum, with the team's back stories neatly encapsulated in insta-sketches, providing rooting interests and comic relief: Lyle (Seth Green) is the slightly goofy computer genius; explosives expert Left-Ear (Mos Def) is a gentle, charming aesthete with a taste for first editions; Handsome Rob (Jason Statham) is the wheel man and smooth womanizer; and Wahlberg's Charlie, a born thief and strategizer, is the mastermind who holds the group together. There are glimmers of his attraction to Stella, but he's generally so stolid and blank that their nascent romance has little resonance, and he barely registers as an individual.
Even if there's little question that the good thieves will triumph, the film generates a good share of tension, especially in scenes that place Stella and her father's killer face to face. Plan A falls through in a terrific twist, and, as Steve Says to Charlie with a nasty smirk, the game starts up again. It culminates in engineered gridlock and a cat-and-mice chase between Steve, in a malignant black helicopter, and the three heroic Minis -- red, white and blue, as in the original -- tearing through Hollywood and plunging into dark Metro tunnels.
Franky G, Olek Krupa, Boris Krutonog and Gawtti make impressions in supporting roles, while the likable central ensemble gets the job done with straight-ahead work. But the most compelling reason to see the film, besides its high-wire action, is Norton, whose Steve is a villain to remember not because he's outsize in any way but because he's quite the opposite -- an unsettling calculation of quiet self-loathing and predatory instincts.
The accomplished technical package serves the action well, from the widescreen lensing, pulse-quickening editing and propulsive music to the production and costume design, which never call attention to themselves, and the slick Cartesian computer models used throughout. Gray pays tribute to Caine, the original Charlie, in a fleeting glimpse of "Alfie" on the villain's big-screen TV.
THE ITALIAN JOB
Paramount Pictures
De Line Pictures
Credits:
Director: F. Gary Gray
Screenwriters: Donna Powers, Wayne Powers
Based on the film written by: Troy Kennedy Martin
Producer: Donald De Line
Executive producers: James R. Dyer, Wendy Japhet, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Director of photography: Wally Pfister
Production designer: Charles Wood
Music: John Powell
Costume designer: Mark Bridges
Editors: Richard Francis-Bruce, Christopher Rouse
Cast:
Charlie Croker: Mark Wahlberg
Stella Bridger: Charlize Theron
Steve Frezelli: Edward Norton
Lyle: Seth Green
Handsome Rob: Jason Statham
Wrench: Franky G.
John Bridger: Donald Sutherland
Yevhen: Boris Krutonog
Mashkov: Olek Krupa
Skinny Pete: Gawtti
Running time -- 111 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Friday, May 30
"The Italian Job", a 1969 comic caper about a cunning plan to steal a gold shipment from the streets of Turin, gets translated into a muscular present-day actioner under the assured direction of F. Gary Gray. If the first film was big on quirky charm and heart -- it starred Michael Caine, Noel Coward and Benny Hill -- the new version opts for high-gloss style and forward momentum.
Scripters Donna Powers and Wayne Powers borrow two story elements from the original and run with them: the idea of creating a traffic jam in order to pull off a heist and the crucial use of a fleet of three Mini Coopers as stunt characters par excellence. This time around, the microcars are not only characters but a full-fledged marketing tie-in. Times have changed.
Less giddy and more cohesive than the original, the film doesn't waste time, plunging almost directly into a spectacular heist of $35 million in gold bullion that six men, working with digital precision, pull off in a Venice palazzo. The subsequent speedboat chase through the canals, the first of several sequences featuring vehicles performing only-in-the-movies feats, sets the bar for the film's power-propulsion sensibility. On the heels of the "X-Men" and "Matrix" sequels, this more earthbound adventure, with its appealing cast, will be a strong pull for summer audiences seeking high-velocity action.
The plot twists begin when, after a mountaintop toast to their success, five of the men fall victim to a double-cross on an icy road through the Alps, with their sour accomplice Steve (Edward Norton) stepping forward as the bad guy and killing the group's elder statesman, John Donald Sutherland). In a visual homage to the first film's cliffhanger ending, the men's van teeters on the edge of the road before plunging into a lake, where the remaining men share diving equipment to stay alive while Steve shoots away as though at fish in a barrel. Believing they're all dead, he takes off with his conspirators and the loot.
A year later, the gold bricks, marked with telltale Balinese dancers, surface in Los Angeles, and the group's leader, Charlie (Mark Wahlberg), enlists the help of John's daughter (Charlize Theron) in getting them back. Stella, who has inherited her father's knack for cracking safes but works with the law rather than against it, gives in to the desire to avenge John's death. Besides being a skilled safe technician, she's a menace with a Mini, pushing her little red car to extremes through everyday traffic, a talent that will come in handy during the final heist.
The group assembles in L.A. and organizes a scheme to steal the remaining gold from Steve's hilltop mansion. Gray and the writers keep psychologizing to a minimum, with the team's back stories neatly encapsulated in insta-sketches, providing rooting interests and comic relief: Lyle (Seth Green) is the slightly goofy computer genius; explosives expert Left-Ear (Mos Def) is a gentle, charming aesthete with a taste for first editions; Handsome Rob (Jason Statham) is the wheel man and smooth womanizer; and Wahlberg's Charlie, a born thief and strategizer, is the mastermind who holds the group together. There are glimmers of his attraction to Stella, but he's generally so stolid and blank that their nascent romance has little resonance, and he barely registers as an individual.
Even if there's little question that the good thieves will triumph, the film generates a good share of tension, especially in scenes that place Stella and her father's killer face to face. Plan A falls through in a terrific twist, and, as Steve Says to Charlie with a nasty smirk, the game starts up again. It culminates in engineered gridlock and a cat-and-mice chase between Steve, in a malignant black helicopter, and the three heroic Minis -- red, white and blue, as in the original -- tearing through Hollywood and plunging into dark Metro tunnels.
Franky G, Olek Krupa, Boris Krutonog and Gawtti make impressions in supporting roles, while the likable central ensemble gets the job done with straight-ahead work. But the most compelling reason to see the film, besides its high-wire action, is Norton, whose Steve is a villain to remember not because he's outsize in any way but because he's quite the opposite -- an unsettling calculation of quiet self-loathing and predatory instincts.
The accomplished technical package serves the action well, from the widescreen lensing, pulse-quickening editing and propulsive music to the production and costume design, which never call attention to themselves, and the slick Cartesian computer models used throughout. Gray pays tribute to Caine, the original Charlie, in a fleeting glimpse of "Alfie" on the villain's big-screen TV.
THE ITALIAN JOB
Paramount Pictures
De Line Pictures
Credits:
Director: F. Gary Gray
Screenwriters: Donna Powers, Wayne Powers
Based on the film written by: Troy Kennedy Martin
Producer: Donald De Line
Executive producers: James R. Dyer, Wendy Japhet, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Director of photography: Wally Pfister
Production designer: Charles Wood
Music: John Powell
Costume designer: Mark Bridges
Editors: Richard Francis-Bruce, Christopher Rouse
Cast:
Charlie Croker: Mark Wahlberg
Stella Bridger: Charlize Theron
Steve Frezelli: Edward Norton
Lyle: Seth Green
Handsome Rob: Jason Statham
Wrench: Franky G.
John Bridger: Donald Sutherland
Yevhen: Boris Krutonog
Mashkov: Olek Krupa
Skinny Pete: Gawtti
Running time -- 111 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
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