Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

zzzorf I watched this movie because only a few days back I rewatched the redo starring Mark Wahlberg. While I barely liked the redo I thought well gives me a good opportunity to compare the two. Well that was a bad idea in my part.First off the movies are nothing really alike accept for maybe the cars. The redo seemed more like a sequel then an actual redo. Beside that however watching the redo first meant I was expecting something I just didn't get. I do enjoy older movies at times but I do have a tendency to lean towards more modern things so sometimes older things can be left out dated because of that, this is one of those cases.The movie itself I struggled to keep myself interested in. I knew that the hook of the movie was the job itself and that was where the movie really went up a notch but I found myself no longer interested when the time come. The hijinx of the car chase were good but by then I was so disinterested they hardly registered. For my 10 year old son however it was a different story. He only started watching around the time of the job and therefore was not in my bored state. His eyes were glued to the screen, loving what he saw.My advice, don't watch the redo just before you watch this. Watch it in its own bubble to make up your mind and then maybe watch the redo.

JohnHowardReid I was surprised that Paramount issued a DVD (a 10/10 job too!) of The Italian Job (1969). I remember watching this film on its first release. It was a Friday night and I was sitting alone (not counting four usherettes) in a cavernous, 1,514-seats cinema. Box-office-wise, the film was a complete dud in most towns, though it did good business in Liverpool and Manchester. The conclusion gets my nomination as the worst movie cop-out of all time and as for Mr Caine, here repeating his Alfie image in the broadest possible way, the less said the better. True, the car chases were expertly filmed with a certain amount of inventive gusto (but the best sequence was left on the cutting-room floor. Fortunately, it has been rescued from obscurity in the Paramount DVD) but cars do not a movie make. You can see them any day on the street or (if you're dead keen) at an auto show. On the other hand, it was certainly a grand idea to have Noel Coward receive such an overwhelming on-screen ovation in his last film.

sol- More impressive the second and third time round, 'The Italian Job' is a film best watched with as few expectations as possible. Its status as one of the greatest crime capers of all time leaves a little to be desired with formulaic characters and none of the buddy-buddy dynamics of 'Ocean's Eleven' and films of its ilk. The fact that we never get to know the characters beyond their basic plot function is less problematic though when one views the film on its own terms. The movie doesn't exactly have a lot to say (other than 'us' against 'them' stuff), but it offers an interesting portrait of the role of automobiles in society, right down to the traffic jam itself, where vehicles that are meant to help one to get around actually prevent folks from getting around. It's a surprisingly funny film too; "this is my toilet!" Coward exclaims after a surprising rendezvous with Caine, and large fluffy toys that will not stop squeaking provide a comical overtone to Caine's fight with his girlfriend. The first hour, which drags on occasional, has nothing on the briskly paced final half-hour which is indeed good enough on its own to make the entire film worth watching. The aerial photography of the three minis driving about like intelligent mice running through a maze is great, and the film's 'Self Preservation' theme song is a delight, perfectly capturing the euphoria of the British criminals. The memorable ending is pitch perfect too and works well even when one knows that it is coming.

SimonJack Having commented on the 2003 remake of this movie, I thought I should also review the original – after watching it again. I noted that the 2003 version is good as well, but it is all crime without the comedy, and it's almost all "high tech." The plot of this original does rely on technology – a switched computer tape that runs the city of Turin's traffic system. But, that's taken care of in a few minutes of the film. The rest is a plot of planning, maneuvering and action with interludes of miscues. This is among the earliest films to use a high-tech device in its plot. Before this time, the most commonly used plots with technical devices were security alarm systems in museums and cameras in banks. Humor is interspersed in all this. It's a British movie filmed in Ireland, England, the city of Turin, Italy, and the Italian Alps. Michael Caine is Charlie Croker, a local bad boy who has just finished two years in the slammer. Noel Coward is Mr. Bridger, the imprisoned king of corruption in Great Britain. Croker has to get Bridger's organization to back the biggest heist of all time -- $4 million in gold. Raf Vallone is Altabani, the Italian mafia leader who's out to stop the British heist. Besides being a very good comedy caper film, "The Italian Job" (1969) is one heck of a satire of the British penal system. Every scene back at the prison with Mr. Bridger is hilarious. This is the funniest and best mockery portrayal of a big time criminal living the life of royalty in a prison. The film has a large cast of men involved in the heist, but the vast bulk of dialog, scene time and humor is with the three main characters. The cinematography is excellent and the filming and scripting of the car chase scenes is among the best of that type of action ever filmed. Mr. Bridger's loyalty to Great Britain and the royal family is the cause of some good laughs a few times. Croker saves the lives of his crew when Altabani and his Mafia men intercept them coming into Italy over the Alps. He tells Altabani that if the Mafia kills him and his men, Bridge's organization would come down on the thousands of Italian restaurants and other businesses in Great Britain.The Mafia is protective of Italy's economy, while Bridger also is interested in bolstering England's lagging economy by causing the hit on Italy's economy through the heist. It's all quite funny. There are some instances of innuendo about Croker and his love life, and a few otherwise clean jokes in places that only the older children are likely to get. So, this is a film that the whole family should enjoy. I think one of the very best scenes is the ending. It's the perfect "unending" to leave an audience to wonder if the old adage is true – that "crime does not pay."