The Italian Job

The Italian Job
by F. Gary Gray

Category: DVD
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DVD Reviews of The Italian Job

DVD Review: A Fun Caper with some Great Action Scenes
Summary: 4 Stars

There is very little character development except for three of the conspirators. Donald Sutherland has a crucial but much too brief role for one of my favorite actors as John Bridger, an aging pro who is handing on his expertise to his young protege Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg). Edward Norton is almost perfect as the shallow Steve Frezelli, the member of the group who is in it solely for the money and is unfazed by any code of honor among thieves. (Almost like a reprise of his character in THE SCORE.) In a great twist, he defines himself by his posseessions but can't even come up with anything original to purchase with the loot. Last, Seth Green is greaty as Lyle the techno-geek whose expertise is crucial to the robberies and who wants to be known as The Napster, since he claims that the Napster technology was stolen from him by his college roommate while he was taking a nap. The rest of the characters are quite well cast but pretty unidimensional, and the romantic elements are almost nonexistent but fortunately are not central to the story. A nice twist was the similarities in the methodology employed in the two major heists, and the use of technology was actually quite clever.

My wife and I both enjoyed this movie more than we expected that we would, there are enough plots twists and misdirection to keep it enjoyable and as well as a reasonable amount of tension on occasion. We also thought that the use of the mini Coopers as in the original version with Michael Caine was both a nice touch and worked great both as a plot device and in the theft and chase finale. The one caveat that I would like to emphasize is the limited amount of character development. Thus, it is more like OCEANS ELEVEN in this respect, and less like the recently released THE GOOD THIEF. In this regard, it also stands in sharp contrast to three of my favorite films of this genre, THE SCORE with the wonderful roles and interaction of Brando and DeNiro (along with Angela Bassett's brief appearance) and both the original THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (Steve McQueen And Faye Dunaway) and the remake with Pierce Brosnan and Renee Russo, which in all instances incorporated a great plot based on a heist but were about the characters and their goals, self images and relationships combined with an important romantic overlay. Thus, while this was a fun flick that will be enjoyable for an occasional viewing, it only deserves four stars in my opinion. Those three are all five star classics that should never grow stale.

Description of The Italian Job