The Italian Job REVIEW

Italian Job: D+/C-

Have you ever watched a movie where you know that at some point you will be on a plane for 5+ hours and this will be the so called in-flight entertainment?

Well, SheDev and I saw a doozy this weekend ... in short, this movie is mediocre ... at best it is a full cut commercial for Mini Cooper

Let's talk about Mini Cooper, shall we ... one day about a year ago or so, SheDev picked me up from my office building and began a happy rant about this car she saw in the car lot nearby

yes, my perceptive friends, the MINI COOPER

So she was going on and on about thrilled she was (basically that BMW Hawaii had brought a dealership here) ... how cute this car was, how much is it, I want to test drive it ... I was like thinking: yeah what a way to die, get runned over by some woman poorly driving a bank max loaned MDX or RX300 or F150 while you bop along in perhaps the most useless little deathtrap car ever designed

Fast forward to 2003, and hey I guess this little car has captured the imagination of the hip and chic ... well, not to be sexist, but its a chick car ... you know the ones, Acura Integra is the Goddess of chick cars ... you complete the list, it does have a VW or two ... now add the MINI

The director of the Italian Job was no doubt well-intentioned in his homage to a 60s heist movie of the same name ... I wasn't around to see it, nor am I burning down nearby Blockbusters or Suncoasts to hunt it down ... so I have no context to compare it to

I think the message one gets from watching the trailers of this movie is that this is high dramatic, intense action, might be thrilling ... oh yeah, and look at the "cute" cars ... sheesh

Ironically the opening is such a well-shot montage of cut scenes from Venice ... of about 2 or so minutes ... we should have cut back our losses left after the great opening, picked up the refund and spent the time watching NEMO ... ha

I don't think I'm a master of the heist movie genre ... Lord knows there are many and various approaches to the genre ... most of them focus on one really hotshot heister ... yeah rhymes with keester ... ha

Or as in the IJ, focuses in on this team of experts put together to pull off the heist ... mind you, this almost "The A-Team" concept .... well it doesn't fly as well as the 80s TV cheesefest masterpiece from my formative years

Ok, so the team has ... watchout for light spoilage ... a leader young guy, a mentor guy who dies, a handsome wheelman, a blowsh--up guy, a computer geek guy, and a reluctant hot chica who can crack safes (extremely plausible says I ... right) ... oh and of course, the new movie baddie of our time Eddie N. playing another sleazebag, whiny, greasy adversary ... who throughout the movie, I wondered why is it that the characters in this movie do not act like real life people and stomp a mudhole in that irritating evil bastard to keep him in line

Ok, heist picture formula ... either heist is planned for one hour, heist goes wrong, chase chase, the "good" bad guys win ... yeah this still is STEALING

Heist picture formula two ... or Italian style ... heist goes off well, there is a screwjob, screwees hunt down screwer, screwer attempts to screw screwees again, nearly succeeds, screwer goes down, 'good' bad guys are happy ... oh again, heists are STEALING, you know you could go to jail for it ... people really enjoy being robbed even in real life ... what are you doing, why arent you stealing ... you could be so happy like these characters here ... sheesh

So ok, a movie about stealing has to sweep you up ... or else you spend the night going yeah, stealing ... uh huh ... totally unplausible there, oh and there ... oh and there .... oh and there too ... SheDev was pointing them all out to me on the drive back to the compound ... quite funny

The great thing about this movie is how it is paced ... in fact, if more bad movies were paced like this one ... that would be one less thing critical bastards like me would complain about after ... this one was BAD but felt short, so bravura about that ...ha

You ever seen a film where you go, I don't understand how this ends up in a romantic relationship ... even in Attack of the Clones, Georgie boy forced it on us with that grass scene ... in the IJ, guy ends up with girl ... but we're left with HUH????? ... action films should really leave the romance out, but very few follow this wisdom --- we shall refer to it as Rambo:First Blood Twoitis from now on in the spirit of my cousin who is married to Julia's sister ... keepin it la familia here ... ha

Ok, in terms of performances to be gotten from a severely limited and bland script ... Don Sutherland, hella brilliant, has more effective acting in his facial gestures than a limited script put out of his mouth ... Norton has weasel down like like ImClone stock, just can't touch it

The rest of the cast really can't carry the weight of the sh---y script and pointless dialogue ... I mean, Statham grouses the whole film, what else does he do ... but Marky Mark is goofy in his I'm the nice guy routine ... Charlize is unbelievable, and looks almost goofy with joy (almost orgasmatron) jagging around in her Coop

The two performances that are really funny and good are by Seth Green (King of the Geek roles, I want a deathmatch between him and that American Pie dude now) and MosDef ... these guys shine in this movie ... and one has to wonder whether it was intentional that they did or not ... they were in kind of goofy limited roles but carried them off well
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So you want to know about the chase scenes ... ironically the boats in the beginning were better than the cars ... odd but true

The car chase that gets all the hype ... well, it just doesn't deliver ... its quite average in the pantheon of the car chase ... I suppose people will have to see the GREEN themed pseudo religious kung fu and guns flick with dude boy to see a better chase ... this is somewhat disappointing considering that the trailers heavily cut in and emphasize the car chase

You want my opinion ... its the MINIs ... pure and simple ... you don't run a chase with fROCken MINIs ... its like watching a race with TORO riding mowers ... equally implausible --- all we need now is Austin Powers to pop up driving one too

I wish I could say that despite the lacks and lags here and there in the movie that it provides excellent well paced entertainment overall ... but it doesn't... what you have is a limited script, some overachieving acting, good pacing, but stunted story that you have seen before

Oh by the way,
MINIs are in .... ha