Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg) assembles a crack team to pull off one last job; a daring heist of a safe which contains $35 million dollars worth of gold bars. However, shortly after the heist has been completed, one of the team turns against the others and escapes with the gold and leaves the remaining members of the team for dead. Following this betrayal, Charlie and his crack team which includes computer genius Lyle (Seth Green), explosives expert Left Ear (Mos Def), and getaway driver Handsome Rob (Jason Statham) set to work in recovering the gold back from the 'rat' in the group with the assistance of safe cracker Stella Bridger (Charlize Theron).
I saw the 1969 version of The Italian Job some time ago and remember finding it reasonably enjoyable (although I recall it having a rather bizarre ending). However, I have to admit to possibly enjoying this remake/reboot slightly more....
I think the biggest strength of this film lies with the characters and their dialogues; as we're introduced to each character we're given a little bit of background information on each character in order to explain away their relevant 'expertise' but it's done in a way that was both funny and clever. I quite liked the way that each character was set-up in this way. I also felt a great sense of camaraderie between the cast; the whole production was done in a very slick and tongue in cheek manner; I thought the scenes between Green and Statham were the funniest and strongest scenes, but the rest of the cast were all great as well.
Another big strength with this film is that it's just so much fun; some heists films have a tendency to become over-plotted and throw in twist after twist. However, with the Italian Job we're just given a straight-forward plot, but yet it's still entertaining enough to keep you interested.
The chase sequences are fun, the direction, editing and basically all technical areas are also excellent resulting in a film that's not only fun, but it's also quite a good looking film too.
Perhaps having low expectations helped here - I thought the original was a good film rather than a great one so I wasn't expecting much here, but the plot moved along almost as fast as the Minis, the script and the camaraderie between the cast were also top notch and above all else it was fun. Definitely worth watching (especially if you were a fan of the original).
