Back Rowe Reviews
Real Time Movie Reviews from the Back Row of a Theater

The Italian Job (PG-13)

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Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Starring: Mark Wahlberg
May 2003

“An Average Job, With Very Few Surprises”


“There is no honor among thieves.” The age-old saying proves very true in The Italian Job, an action-packed heist movie where routing for the bad guys is en vogue (because the other bad guys are much worse).

The movie begins with the thieves, led by Charlie (Mark Wahlberg) and John (Donald Sutherland), stealing a safe filled with 35 million in gold bars. The score goes down without a hitch until one of the members of the team, Steve (Edward Norton), double-crosses them, shoots John, takes all of the booty and kills the rest of the team (or so he thinks).

A year later, Charlie reassembles the original team (sans the deceased John) in L.A., with John’s daughter (Charlize Theron) thrown in for good measure, and they formulate a plan to get their gold back. Steve has purchased a plush mansion and has filled it with the dream items from all of the original team members (trophies that signify his conquest over them). Steve is smart and devious, but Charlie, with the help of his colorful and technical team, proves to be more than a match for the nefarious thief; and after a series of plot twists and action sequences, Charlie and his crew get their gold back.

The word that best describes
The Italian Job is “average.” It’s not a bad movie, but it’s nothing revolutionary either; and Mark Wahlberg’s calculated under-acting only adds to the film’s mediocrity. The movie isn’t devoid of fun, however; the different members of Charlie’s team are quite entertaining, especially Lyle (Seth Green), a young man who claims to have invented Napster (he says his college roommate stole the program while he was asleep on his keyboard). Lyle fancies himself as “The Napster,” and is the technical genius of the group, deftly navigating his way through a self-made computer program that can hack into L.A.’s transportation system and re-route traffic anywhere he wants.

The team is assembled in an amusing, almost
Ocean’s 11-like manner, but the moment is short-lived and most of the characters go unnoticed for the rest of the film. Edward Norton plays the perfect weasel-eyed villain and makes you want to reach through the screen and deck him in the face (like everyone else does in the film).

It’s not a complete loss, but in the final analysis,
The Italian Job is a pretty average way to spend two hours.

Rating: 2 1/2