What a really surprising movie

Rating: 9/10 (16 April 2006)

This is a movie that never ceases to surprise the spectators, leading them to expect a somewhat different bank robbery but, a bank robbery anyway. This is the merit of the screenplay and ho the events and information are brought to us from the beginning up to the last scene of the film. Together with the mastery of the film making, this makes a superb entertaining movie with several subjects that really give substance to the characters and, in an easy approach, take you to several key points: The relationship between a big banker fortune and the opportunity the second world war provided by the NAZI holocaust of the JEWS and subsequent robber of their possessions. In this particular case, the Banker was a friend of the Jew colleague that was put to death, that he could have prevented but chose not no, keeping the jewels of his friend (and his money). How the past came looking for this Banker, but, surprisingly, in a very different look: not the pure revenge on a war criminal but disclosing him as such and getting rich in the process, not by robbing bank notes but famous and much valuable jewels. Good and evil are here relative: the good ones get rich after an extraordinary well designed robbery, the cop gets a promotion and receives a gift from the robber that understood how this cop loved. The Banker uses power to use a Broker specialist in helping cloudy business people doing their businesses and the city Mayor who has to pay some favors, in order to wash away the object of the assault. Good and Evil, crime and punishment: not in this movie. The film lives fully on the story and does not reach the past except for the Banker to acknowledge the robber information on him. No flashbacks, waiting for the next event, some clues on the nature of the gang leader, some comic pieces coming out of the Albanian speech, the Albanian girl and some corruption disclosed when at the Embassy someone wanted money to do a translation. Denzel Washington working fine his character between his personal side and his professional side, Clive Owen a surprising robber creating the faked environment for us and for the police. Jodie Foster showing a very ironical broker. Cinema is entertainment. This film is intelligent entertainment and deserves to be seen and really enjoyed, giving a thought to the subjects it carries.