I watched The Bank Job on Friday and reviewed it for Film Threat.

Here is an excerpt:

 Backstabbing and withholding of information is a common occurrence in heist films; the characters don’t always know they’re about to be double-crossed. Terry knows that Martine isn’t being totally honest with him and the others. Aside from the police presence and the fact that Martine is hiding something, the stolen goods themselves pose a problem. Jewels and currency are just half of the loot. Blackmail-grade photographs and financial records are also among the harvest. Strip club owner and porn producer Lew Vogel (David Suchet), for instance, poses a formidable obstacle to the thieves’ post-job happy hour. Much of the suspense and action in the final fifteen minutes hinges on resolving these issues.

Read the rest of the review here.

I did some poking around and found some articles about the events surrounding the real “Walkie Talkie Robbery.”

The heist became known as the “Walkie-Talkie Robbery” because the burglars communicated via two-way radio, and a ham-radio operator caught their conversations on tape as the crime was in progress. He called the police, but they couldn’t pinpoint the location — and there were 750 banks in the search radius. So the thieves fled with their booty, and the crime was discovered at the open of business the next morning.

Naturally, the robbery was front-page news, but all coverage suddenly stopped after three days. Apparently, a “D Notice” — a cease-and-desist order from a high level in the government — had been issued on the story. “There was no freedom of information act in Britain,” notes La Frenais. “Everything that was in the paper just disappeared.”

Nine years ago, producer Lawrence Bender brought the story to Clement and La Frenais and introduced them to a journalist named George McIndoe, who knew some of the robbers. Intrigued, they dug deeper and began piecing together facts and evidence.

The writers had a lot of blanks to fill in for their screenplay. They knew that Michael X had, at one point, been jailed for murder and released. “He walked without a trial or anything. It may be because he had these photographs,” says La Frenais. The film hints that the scandalous photos were of Princess Margaret, the queen’s sister.

“Princess Margaret … definitely did hobnob with some very dubious individuals. She was a party girl,” director Roger Donaldson says. But the truth about the photos can’t be corroborated because all documents pertaining to Michael X are sealed until 2054.

Read the rest of the article here.

For more information, click here.

For an interview with the director, click here.