The Italian Job

Roger Ebert started his review by saying, “I saw "The Italian Job" in a Chicago screening room, in the midst of a rush of new summer releases. I recollect it now from the Cannes Film Festival, which has assembled one unendurable film after another for its worst year in memory. That doesn't make "The Italian Job" a better film, but it provides a reminder that we do, after all, sometimes go to the movies just to have a good time and not to be mired in a slough of existential despond. Don't get me wrong. I like a good mire in despond now and again; it's just that the despond at Cannes has been so unadmirable.”

F. Gary Gray’s “The Italian Job,” released in 2003, on the other hand, is nothing more, or less, than a cool theft movie with engaging chase scenes and a really smart way to steal $35 million in gold bars from a safe in a Venetian palazzo. The safe is stolen by a gang led by Donald Sutherland, who must be calmed to find that Venice has no dwarfs in red raincoats this season. His team include Charlie (Mark Wahlberg), a planned organizer, second-in-command Steve (Edward Norton), the computer tech Lyle (Seth Green), the getaway driver, Handsome Rob (Jason Statham), and Left-Ear (Mos Def), who can plant bombs really good.

Ebert said, “After a chase through the canals of Venice, which in real life would have led to the loss of six tourist gondolas and the drowning of an accordion player, the confederates go to an extraordinary amount of trouble to meet, with the gold, in a high Alpine pass apparently undisturbed since Hannibal. I have no idea how hard it is to move $35 million in gold from Venice to the Alps with Interpol looking for you, or for that matter how hard it would be to move it back down again, but golly, it's a pretty location.”

After betrayal and murder, the movie takes us to Los Angeles. Imagine how they got through security to get there. Wahlberg and team, who have lost the gold, really want to get it back again, and call on Sutherland’s daughter, Stella, played by Charlize Theron, who is a safecracker. A legal one, until they bring her on.

Stella drives a bright red Mini Cooper, which is critically important to the plot. Eventually, there is a swift of three. Ebert said, “That the crooks in the original "The Italian Job" (1969) also drove Mini Coopers is one of the few points of similarity between the two movies.” Looks like the Mini Cooper was reintroduced for this movie as a product placement.

Actually, that’s not right. They need Mini Coopers because the car can let them drive through narrow spaces, although they have no idea how nice the little cars will become when they drive down the stairs and onto the railroad of the Los Angeles subway system. They’re also nice in traffic jams, and there are nice scenes where traffic lights are manipulated by Lyle, who hilariously insists he is the real inventor of Napster, which was stolen by his roommate while he was taking a nap, which explains his name.

There are a few nice dialogues, Edward Norton is not the first actor to say, “I liked him right up until the moment I shot him,” but he was the latest at the time. The ending is rightfully ironic. This is just the movie for two hours of mindless distraction on a nicely skilled professional level. Ebert ended his review by saying, “If I had seen it instead of the Cannes entry "The Brown Bunny," I would have wept with gratitude.”

I remember seeing this at a college’s theater probably during the summer after my eighth-grade year, not knowing at the time that it would be the same college I would attend, but that’s besides the point. I remember liking it and I think it still holds up today. Check it out if you’d like and see what you think. Honestly, I think people will like this when they see it because there is enjoyability in this movie.

Thank you for joining in on “Mark Wahlberg Month.” Look out next month to see what I will review next.