Review of The Italian Job (2003) by Harry W — 14 Jan 2014

The original version of The Italian Job was a film I intended to see for a while but didn't manage to get around to seeing it before seeing the remake, but the remake sounded cool enough too so I thought why not.

The story of The Italian Job is like Ocean's 11 but with more focus on cars and other forms of transportation to execute it, and on the surface that sounds like an awesome concept.

And along with it is a great script which is intelligent and strongly benefitting to the characters as well as nicely comedic from time to time to lighten the mood and reduce it from being a heavy-handed dramatic film. It tells its story well and takes a good approach and story structure to dealing with its characters and the personalities of them.

And the cinematography is great because it always zooms up on a great angle that gets a view of everything necessary, and it tracks the action scenes very well and combines with strong editing to ensure that the action sequences are all very intense and exhilarating. So The Italian Job succeeds as a visual experience too.

But the true highlight of The Italian Job is the ensemble cast which is rich with talent.

Mark Whalberg is a great lead because even though he dominates the screen as a lead role, his talent is built on his ability to establish a strong chemistry with all the other actors on screen which creates an atmosphere that shows its characters working together harmoniously as friends as well as being a cohort of heist masterminds. Mark Whalberg proves to lead them all very well, and his performance is solid.

Jason Statham is perfect for his role in The Italian Job because considering his arguably most famous role is the main role in The Transporter trilogy, putting him in the role of a car expert in a heist film is perfect for him. And his badass performance is just game in The Italian Job, and surely one of his much better ones.

Edward Norton doesn't make too many mainstream film appearances these days, so seeing him in The Italian Job is a great flashback to his powerful career of the 1990's. And he reminds us what makes him such a strong actor in another one of his manipulative and villainous roles which makes him dominate the screen with complete strength in The Italian Job as the standout.

Charlize Theron is an actress I'm not that familiar with, but she proves a very strong actress in The Italian Job by displaying a sense of sensitivity in her role as well as a strong sense of confident as her character which she covers all the way through the film. She's also very attractive without having to use sex appeal much, so she's a good presence.

Seth Green is in a great role because even though he's known more for his work in significantly different genres such as his role in the Austin Powers trilogy or his role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And so he gets put in a role befitting him in a crime drama, the role of a computer hacker. And so he succeeds as convincing as well as even a little humourous, and it's good to see him in a film like this.

Donald Sutherland was also strong in his brief time on screen.

Still, The Italian Job is laden with issues.

Even though the scenes are all interesting and well scripted, there really isn't a sufficient pace of action over the extended middle period of the film which makes it mildly dull and an extended wait for a powerful and hopefully sufficient climax. But I found the climax I be over a bit quickly and to not be sufficiently strong enough to overshadow the extended waiting period.

Much of The Italian Job seems like it's all theoretical. By that I mean it's mostly about planning out the heist while the execution of it seems to be over pretty quickly, and it spends most of the time focused on an excessive amount of talking while it tries to get to a climax, and for a film where the focus is on a heist and car chases with Mini Coopers, I just feel that the action is insufficient.

So The Italian Job is a great visual experience and is very well acted , even if it's rather slow in extended parts.