“This film has so much Fast & Furious spirit in it... high stakes heist stuff, as well as some truly ridiculous car action.”
The Italian Job was an action heist film released in 2003, directed by F. Gary Gray, written by Donna and Wayne Powers, and starring Mark Wahlberg as Charlie, Charlize Theron as Stella, Edward Norton as Steve, Jason Statham as Handsome Rob, Seth Green as Lyle, Mos Def as Left Ear, and Donald Sutherland as John Bridger. It is ultimately about a bunch of professional thieves who pull off a massive gold robbery in Italy. However, one of their own guys completely screws them over, steals all the gold for himself, and kills their old mentor in the process. The remaining crew links up with the mentor’s daughter to track the traitor down in Los Angeles, hack the city’s traffic grid, and use a fleet of tiny Mini Coopers to literally re-steal the gold right back from under his nose.
52-WEEK MOVIE CHALLEGE #9 - A FILM WITH A HEIST & FAST DRIVING
A prompt like that immediately makes me think of the Fast & Furious saga, right? Or maybe Gone in 60 Seconds, but those are all movies I’ve seen in the past. As usual, I like to stick to films I’ve never seen before for these challenges, which led me to either the original or the remake of The Italian Job. I’ve seen neither, believe it or not, and I opted for the remake based solely on the cast, which is insane: Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Jason Statham, Seth Green, Mos Def, and Donald Sutherland.
It’s stacked, and what’s more, I mostly felt their characters here. They actually felt right for their respective roles rather than just feeling like they’re there based on their star power alone. That’s good, and it reminds me a ton of The Fast and the Furious.
This film has so much Fast & Furious spirit in it that it even features a couple of the latter’s cast members before they joined Vin Diesel’s family... primarily Jason Statham and Charlize Theron. But just as a whole, thematically, this film feels like Fast & Furious, especially Fast Five and beyond, where it’s got the high-stakes heist stuff alongside some truly ridiculous car action. I love that the cars they trick out are these super colorful, tiny Mini Coopers carrying out all of these heists with precision and flair. Personally, I love a good heist film, and the way The Italian Job wrote and planned out the central heist was pretty smart. The fact that everything about these gold bars is kind of silly and old-school fits the overall vibe of the film.
One thing that really bugs me, though, is that I almost want to say we have some false marketing here. The movie is called what? The Italian Job. And where does the movie actually take place? Hollywood, California. Not Italy. The original film on which it’s based did, in fact, take place in Italy, but the plot was moved to California for this remake. The initial heist in the first ten minutes of the film takes place in Italy, but that serves more as a gimmick and a reason to keep the title The Italian Job. The real job of the film takes place in Los Angeles... so it would make more sense to call it The Hollywood Job.
This is more of a very light complaint at the end of the day; it doesn’t make the movie better or worse. It’s just kind of an obvious thing. As a 2003 film, you can more or less bet it will feel very specific to that era. 2003 was a unique time in film history for action, and a lot of movies from the first few years of the new millennium felt a particular way. Maybe cringey, maybe tacky... but fun anyway? The Italian Job fits that mold perfectly. They had originally planned a sequel called The Brazilian Job, and I wish they had followed through with it, but it was ultimately scrapped.
Overall, I’m glad I saw this one. I have it pretty high on my ranking for this 52-Week challenge... currently sitting in 3rd or 4th place, just because of how good of a time I had with it.
Unbiased/Technical Score: 38/50 (76%)
Biased/Entertainment Score: 44/50 (88%)
Total/Combined Score: 82/100 (82% or 4/5 stars on Letterboxd)