Pretty exciting two hours!!

Rating: Null/10 (29 December 2003)

My son Greg gave me the deluxe Widescreen Edition DVD of 'The Italian Job.' Until I watched the extras after seeing the movie, I didn't know that an original movie of this same title was made in the 1960s. However, it was more of a comedy, and the new version is quite different. The movie starts with a job in Italy, followed by a double-cross, followed by a heist of the loot in Los Angeles. Very creative, very exciting. No lasting value, but an entertaining way to spend almost 2 hours, for Charlize Theron, if nothing else! The DVD is a very nice one, especially for those who enjoy seeing various 'making of' extras.
SPOILERS follow, for my own recollection, stop reading, OK!?
The first heist in Venice has them creating several blasts that allow a safe with gold to fall through several floors and into the water, where the gold was extracted while a boat chase with fake safe was used as a decoy. Edward Norton plays the group member who double-crosses the others at an Austrian pass, wants the $35Million in gold bars all for himself, kills Donald Sutherland, but the others get away by driving off the bridge into the frozen lake and using breathing gear. They track the gold to L.A. where they enlist Sutherland's daughter (Theron) a legal safecracker to help them. Wise to the plot, Norton arranges three armored trucks to leave his house, one with gold, which they figure by remote measuring of rear tire compression, take control of L.A. traffic lights, cause the truck to go a certain route, a blast causes the truck to fall into the train tunnel, where with the help of red, white, and blue Cooper Minis they get the gold to a freight car and leave town, Norton is taken away by Russian friends for 'disposal.'