Director: Peter Collinson
Writer: Troy Kennedy-Martin (Screenplay)
Starring: Michael Caine, Noel Coward, Benny Hill, Raf Vallone, Tony Beckley, Rossano Brazzi
Plot: Comic caper movie about a plan to steal a gold shipment from the streets of Turin by creating a traffic jam.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Classic Crime Caper
Story: The Italian Job starts as Charlie Croker (Caine) gets released from prison and going about his day in his con-artist thieving lifestyle. Charlie has already got a job set up for with the recently killed Beckerman (Brazzi) who has planned a robbery in Italy down to perfection.
Charlie needs to put his own team together for this job which brings him back to his old business associates with Mr Bridger (Coward) financing the job from behind bars. Charlie puts together his team as they head off to Italy for the job with a series of training mistakes.
The job takes a turn when Charlie learns the Mafia are also looking to take out any Englishman trying to steal from their country but can Charlie pull off the biggest heist of his career, that is the question.
Thoughts on The Italian Job
Characters/Performance – Charlie is your typical wheeler-dealer criminal that can charm his way into anything or out of anything. He likes his plan and most of all he is the leader for the crime team. Mr Bridger is the financer who is behind bars but has all of the power England seems to want to let him have. The rest of the characters all have odd quirks but don’t get enough screen time to become memorable.
Performance wise this film is a Michael Caine masterclass where he does steal every single scene he is starring in, Noel Coward does seem to have a lot of fun with his overly English character with the rest of the cast all doing their jobs well.
Story – The story is about a crime heist in a different country, we get to see how it all comes together with twists in the story. There really isn’t too much more to go on when you break down the story, it is easy to follow and you all should know how it ends now.
Action/Comedy/Crime – Watching the heist unfold is all the action we need for this film with the crime side of the story being the planning of the heist which also has elements of comedy going on throughout.
Settings – Having the heist set in Italy does make this stand out from the rest of the films in this genre and is still just as iconic as this film has become.
Final Thoughts – This film will always be remembered for it’s unbelievable final car chase through the streets of Italy and you can see just how brilliant that scene is.
Overall: The classic of all heist movies and cliff hanger endings.
Rating
