Review of The Italian Job (1969) by Päivi-Mari H — 23 Jul 2009

Crime doesn't pay. Unless of course you're a character in The Italian Job, where crime is simply an occupation, criminals are jolly folk with cheeky nicknames, and the only people inconvenienced by theft are murderous, miserable foreigners who've got it coming. Rule Britannia!

Okay, so The Italian Job has about as much in common with the criminal underworld as Dirty Harry does with real police-work., but nobody ever said it was a documentary. It's a caper movie, a romp, and a daftly enjoyable one at that.

Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) has inherited a job: rob four million dollars' worth of gold from Turin with a traffic jam, the day of a football match with England. They escape in three Minis on the only routes left open. That is, if the Mafia let them survive long enough to pull it off in the first place...

Fans tend to obsess over the Minis, and I wish they wouldn't. This is not to downplay the miraculous stunt-driving of Remy Julienne and his team: the whole getaway sequence is mesmerising and funny, cut to a gloriously cheerful bit of Cockney sing-along that youâll be humming considerably after the film finishes. However, there also happens to be about 80 minutes of funny, neatly-scripted comedy before this, and it's too often overlooked. Caine shines as confident lothario Charfie, and the rest of the cast - most notably Noel Coward as boss Mr Bridger, and Tony Beckley as Camp Freddie - are odd, memorable and likeable. Even the blink-and-miss-them roles, like John Le Mesurier as a spineless prison warden, are joys to watch.

The script might be full of great one-liners, but it's also got a lot of brilliantly naturalistic "umm"ing and "aah"ing. The conversations might be perfectly-scripted, but they also sound like they're being had by (approximately) real people. The whole thing holds together much better than a lot of other heist movies, which tend to feature one actual event (a robbery) preceded by nothing but preamble and setbacks. The Italian Job is more of a rounded comedy. It will appeal to most of the family, provided they don't mind cheering for criminals.

The film's carefree attitude is a fair assessment of the '60s, which makes sense considering The Italian Job came right at the end of the decade. It's a sunny, irresponsible and irrepressible film, possibly a hair or two more enjoyable for an English audience, but essentially just as fun and funny for everyone else. Well, possibly not the Italians.