The Italian Job (2003) (*)
review by Jon Waterman

A group of world-class thieves steal a large sum of gold from Italy by pulling off the most complex heist of their career. Once they’re in the clear, they are ambushed by one of their own. Now, the remaining “good” thieves must try to steal it back from the “bad” thief. In order to do this, they must pull off an even more complex heist than the most complex heist of their career to date. Sound exciting?

The movie was quite boring. Any sense of tension is virtually non-existent. Not only that, but they build up this scheme to get into the house of Steve (the bad guy) to take the stuff. This is what the majority of the movie is about. Then it all gets thrown out the window for reasons I won’t go into here so that those that feel like watching it don’t know too much about the plot. Let’s just say I felt like all of that time should have been cut out of the picture entirely.

“The Italian Job” is an ensemble piece comprised of mostly B-actors (Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron) and those fulfilling contractual obligations (Edward Norton). Of course, each character has a specialty. Seth Green steals the show as the computer hacker. His dialogue is the funniest and perhaps the only intentionally funny dialogue. My big problem with his character, though – he uses a Dell. I have a hard time believing that a professional computer hacker would be using a pre-packaged machine. I understand the concept of advertising in movies, but let’s try a billboard next time. Right, Mr. Important Pepsi Blue Truck?

Now, let’s talk about the action. Like I said before it was boring. Not only that, but it came off about as hokey as a Bond film without the reputation to back it up. What we are meant to take as serious is either yawn inducing (like the car chase) or laughable (like pretty much the whole thing). Not only that, but virtually no damage was done. We are “treated” to a long car chase in the middle of huge amounts of traffic, but guess what. No car crashes. I’m surprised I’m saying this, but I miss senseless destruction and mayhem. It’s not exciting to watch a car squeak by everything. No explosions. Nothing. Blah.

This film, in my opinion, starts off the summer season perfectly. If you thought about it, most of the film made no sense. And, it may have been boring and dumb. But it was still more fun to watch than “Gosford Park.”

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