THE ITALIAN JOB (2003) - Marky Mark and the Thieving Bunch

Everyone loves a good heist flick. If someone ever tells you they don't, they are liars or they hate life in general. In any case, stay away from them and find normal friends. Anyways, the 1960s and 70s were a great time for old fashioned caper movies, and one of the best of the bunch was The Italian Job, which starred Michael Caine and involved a pretty awesome series of chases through Venice. The 2003 movie is inspired by it, but has a new plot and characters, and is a stand up action movie in its own right. Also, it's got Charlize Theron in it and she's looks pretty hot throughout the whole thing. It didn't take much else to convince me to choose this as my next review.

Why do I love this movie? Here's a clue: it starts with Charlize and ends with Theron

The movie opens with a shout out to the original flick, with a scene in Venice, as veteran thief and safe-cracker John Bridger (Donald Sutherland) calls his daughter back in the U.S., telling her he's in Italy for one last job. John meets up with his crew of thieves, led by Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg) and they prepare for a heist involving a huge amount of gold bricks. The team includes getaway driver Handsome Rob (Jason Statham), computer nerd Lyle (Seth Green), explosives pyromaniac Left Ear (Mos Def) and con man Steve (Edward Norton). They get their hands on the gold and they make their way out of the city on speedboats and meet up later to celebrate. The celebrating doesn't last long however, when they're betrayed by a jealous and greedy Steve, who pops a cap in John and makes off with the gold stash, leaving the others for dead in a frozen lake.

Every good heist movie needs its share of witty banter.

Charlie and his gang obviously start planning their revenge on that asshole Steve. To get back their stolen gold, which Steve is sure to keep in a safe, Charlie goes to recruit John's daughter Stella (Charlize Theron), who is a master safe-cracker herself. She agrees to take on the job to avenge her dead father, and the crew gets back to work, scoping out Steve's new mansion and planning to break into his security system. Steve being the bastard that he is, is still very much convinced Charlie and his buddies are dead and is trying hard to sell off his gold.

Yes, I did just add another picture of Charlize into the review. Haters gon' hate.

The gang's first attempt to break into Steve's house and crack his safe goes wrong after Steve wises up and recognizes Stella as the late John's daughter. Charlie is forced to go back to step one and a get a new plan, which will eventually end up including a 400-pound obese Samoan dude, an awesome car chase throughout Los Angeles in tricked out Mini Coopers, explosions, a lot of Jason Statham's scowling, the Russian mafia, etc.

Mini Coopers. Mini Coopers EVERYWHERE.

The original 1969 movie had a lot of comedy alongside its caper story, and was a damn good watch. This Italian Job follows the same formula. It never takes itself too seriously and instead keeps the action moving breezily and uses its cast to good effect. Wahlberg is decent, Charlize is hot, Mos Def's annoying level is at an all-time low, Seth Green has some funny lines, and Statham, as usual, is damn hilarious. Edward Norton always does a great villain too, even if Steve is not exactly one of his best roles. He's more of a tremendous douchebag than a criminal mastermind, but in keeping with the tone of the flick it works well.

It's my blog, and I'll post as much Charlize as I want.

I doubt there's many people that haven't already seen it, but if you're out there, and you've been living under a rock with no cable or Netflix, it's worth a watch.

TL;DR - Marky Mark makes robbing people look so easy, you'll want to do it too - 7.5/10