Catharsis with a wrecking ball ...

Rating: Null/10 (23 January 2005)

I just watched The Italian Job (2003). It was a fun kind of movie which featured 2 brutal murders and promised a gruesome finale for Edward Norton in the bowels of an automobile crushing machine ... Whilst he's being carted off by angry Ukranians, the music swells and our heroes laugh merrily. We even get to see them enjoying their money as the end credits roll, in amusing vignettes.The good guys (and girl) triumph and the villain gets his comeuppance. But does the prospect of an horrific death really offer catharsis in a 'caper' film where car chases visibly result in nothing more than a few cuts and bruises? I'm willing to concede I might have missed the point but still feel that when attractive characters are required to act cool and appear witty in the name of revenge, it makes 'switching off' much harder to enjoy? Thanks for an 'entertaining' film nevertheless.