The Bank Job

Jason Statham plays a dodgy car dealer persuaded to pull off a bank heist by ex-model Saffron Burrows

Jason Statham plays a dodgy car dealer persuaded to pull off a bank heist by ex-model Saffron Burrows.

Thanks to Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais' sterling script and Roger Donaldson's taut, expert direction, this is a top-notch Brit crime thriller, based on the true story of a heist gone wrong - the unsolved robbery of a bank at London's Baker Street in 1971.

Statham and his gang plot the robbery but, unfortunately for them, the bank's safe deposit contents have links to organised crime, black power activists - and even a suppressed Royal Family scandal.

It's a gripping story and the film's commendably tense, with exciting stretches when the heist and its messy aftermath are underway.

David Suchet is nice and menacing as the chief villain and Daniel Mays, Keeley Hawes, Peter Bowles and Stephen Campbell Moore are also among the cast.

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