The original was a classic. It leaves the remake of The Italian Job standing, says Patricia Weston.
It's a good job The Italian Job is not a remake of the 1969 film. This sophisticated and stylish movie, starring Mark Wahlberg, Edward Norton and Charlize Theron, is nothing more than an elaborate advertisement for cars and motorbikes. It never manages to get into the genre or come near the original classic.
The viewer is taken on a vehicular journey, from the Aston Martini to the BMW Z3. The storyline takes a back seat as the wheels, not the plot, propel the movie.
The Mini Cooper steals the show, taking the advertiser's dream of product placement to new heights - or depths.
The movie takes off in Venice with a speedboat chase. Once the robbers have acquired their booty, they chase off through the watery streets rocking somnolent gondolas along the way.
Shuttling forward, the Cooper takes centre stage, driven by Theron. We are treated to a demonstration of the car's effortless cruising and beautiful braking. We also get a veritable beauty pageant of cars as the soft "gangsters" are introduced one by one with their wheels of choice.
Computer geek Lyle, played by Seth Green, enters on a yellow motorbike, which he naturally cannot control and eventually knocks to the ground. Left-ear, played by Mos Def, drives forward in a battered Mercedes. Handsome Rob, played by cockney Jason Statham, poses in a BMW sports car.
The characters are identified by what they drive, so the wheels dominate and there isn't much in the way of complex character development.
There are only a few laughs in this poorly plotted movie. As the film re-locates to Hollywood to prepare for the heist, Handsome Rob addresses America's atrocious traffic congestion. Spotting an anti-smoking poster logging the number of deaths per day from smoking as he waits in traffic, he quips that five people died from smoking while he waited in the jam.
Even the high-speed chase which is the movie's climax fails to raise the pulse. We're teased with lines such as "it's the getaway that can get us caught." Geeky Lyle hacks the city's traffic network so the chase can begin. Slapstick accidents ensue as the three Copers, one red, one blue and one white, pursue the gold hidden in a safe in a truck.
The chase begins with the three Coopers trundling down the steps of the city's subway. BMW R1150 RT motorbikes pursue them - two are used to make sure the viewer doesn't miss the "subtlety" of the advertising. They can't out-run the mighty Minis which weave in and out of traffic, managing to maintain their shiny bodywork without incurring so much as a dent or scratch.
Next a helicopter goes head-to-head with the Minis, but it's unable to outwit the nifty mover.
Bad plot and implausible characters fail to fool the audience into thinking this is a "real" film. All it manages to do is display motors. It will linger in the memory about as long as a short TV commercial.