OK heist

Rating: 5/10 (24 April 2008)

As a heist movie The Italian Job is neither a noir heist, but could have been, nor a really suspenseful heist, but might have been. Instead they played along the line of the source material, the 1969 flick, and set up a movie about a cool bunch (minus the swinging sixties style).
Hey, there's the rub. As a cool actioneer it works pretty well, much better than the original indeed since action then was thought as a big farandole joke in line with the rest of the movie. But they added other stuff around the heist in it: above all there is not one single big heist, it's more about a setup for the original idea of having minis speeding in narrow subway tunnels; then things that are not sparklingly cool also clutter up without adding much.
To make it short without giving away plot points there's a line that says fine for a thief means "Freaked-out Insecure Neurotic Emotional". These are precisely the points that never come to fruition along the story although there's supposed to be a strong emotional background.
Bottom line: OK movie that could have been much better paced (quite a few lull ends in it between the expected action, comic strip characterization), hence entirely forgotten the next day.