First of all: I'm not a fan of Jason Statham. But nr. 1, and but nr.2:
Impressive start: the sunny Caribbean, 1970, beautiful half naked woman swimming in the ocean, and Marc Bolan shouts through his T-Rex's throat: "Get it On!" 5 seconds later we are (ok, I wasn't there:) in the bed: the same woman enjoying herself being in a sandwich between a couple of dark "bread". I thought it's a nice composition - but it seems not I was the only voyeur of the situation: we see a black guy making photos of the acrobatic scene. Agree with Marc: get it on!
Hmm, somebody pushed the nail of the film's turntable, because suddenly we are in the greyish East London, already 1971. Just briefly: Michael X (the English Malcolm), "the black Robin Hood of Nothing Hill", who always wanted to meet a white man with a name 'Brown':)) was the procurer to make those compromising pictures ... about a high member of the Royal family... He is a simple drug criminal covered his business with contemporary artists (you'll se even Lennon and Yoko Ono around his table) and black ideological bullshit, but nobody can touch him until he owns the negatives. The deposit is in the Lloyds Bank. Should I tell more what is the film about with a title The Bank Job?
Maybe I should, because the case isn't as simple as it looks like (did you realize already that in the latter years one film consists at least two movies; or maybe connected to this fact the average film length is growing steadily?). According to the case's sensitivity there needs to be a solution to get those pictures without any accountability with anyone in high position. Maybe this is the time for the small scale criminal Terry (Statham) and his "garage" to make their big score? They jump into the business, a classic bank job without knowing what they are really looking at. And as I suggested, the case is a "bit" more complicated: at least there are other values in that bank, with relations of even higher upper crusts...
Actually there isn't any new under the sun: criss-crossed storylines of motivations, and every kind of overlapped interests are meshing London's and the story's textual. But (nr. 3) Roger Donaldson's (Cocktail, huh..) 'based-on-true-story' (the seventies' police corruption, the mysterious bank robbery case, and princess Margaret's allegedly secret affair) bank-film still gives a quickly flyin' two hours of amusement. Nothing else, and that's really good. One-time watching somewhere halfway of Guy Ritchie's and the Ocean's 11-12-13's feelings.
(Here is a bonus picture about the film's bank clerk. Do we have a cameo by Mick Jagger? The idea is not mine, who personally quite sceptical about the similarity... or is he really?)
8/10
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