Dull title hides a nifty caper flick

Whoever's responsible for the misleadingly generic title of "The Bank Job" should be charged with fraud. Sounds as unexceptional as the can of "FOOD" from "Repo Man," but it's the best caper movie to come out in a long time and one of best movies so far this year, period.

Perpetually stubbly action guy Jason Statham stars as Terry Leather, a shady auto-shop owner in 1971 London whose ex-model friend, Martine (Saffron Burrows), turns him onto a sure thing: a vault easy to knock over via tunneling because its alarms are off for a few days.

But Terry's getting played in a "Mission: Impossible" type of scam. A suave government spook (Richard Lintern) has engineered the heist to keep official hands clean. The job's really to empty the safety deposit box of corrupt black-power leader "Michael X" (Peter De Jersey), who's using naughty photos of a cavorting Royal for blackmail to keep the law off him.

There's more: Another box contains pics from a house of ill repute that caters to the kinky fetishes of the powerful — including the spook's boss. Yet another box holds the ledger of a porn king's payoffs to bent cops. That may seem like a lot to keep straight, but the planning and execution of the fairly conventional heist are fast-paced and deftly illustrated. It's when Terry and his amiable crew of amateurs empties the joint that the real tension begins. Everybody's after them.

The story is loosely based on a real crime known as the "Walkie-Talkie Robbery" — because a ham-radio geek tuned into the gang's chatter. (The real Michael X also enjoyed John Lennon's patronage.) The film's period details seem perfect yet unobtrusive, and not a little like the BBC's great "Life on Mars." Maybe it's the mustaches. Anyhow, the only thing besides the title that might keep some people away is its utter Englishness. There are moments when subtitles wouldn't hurt, but that's not so much a criticism as a prediction of laziness and ethnocentrism.

And while Statham speaks the universal language of kicking people in the face, this isn't an action movie. The Guy Ritchie vet may have limitations, but he finds his steely groove amid a cast filled with fine character actors, particularly David "Poirot" Suchet as the porn king and Lintern (who may have been cast for his resemblance to Richard Johnson as Bulldog Drummond in the great spy flick, "Deadlier Than the Male").

Aussie director Roger Donaldson has been all over the map — the embarrassing "Cocktail," the wretched remake of "The Getaway," the entertaining "No Way Out." "The Bank Job" is so tightly constructed that it doesn't seem as if it could have come from the man also responsible for the rambling "World's Fastest Indian." Blending suspense, humor, period detail, interesting characters and bringing together a complex plot in an immensely satisfying way, Donaldson really pulled one off this time.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com