|
|
|
|
The Italian Job (2003 film)
|
| |
|
| |
The Italian Job is a 2003 American heist film directed by F. Gary Gray. The film stars Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Seth Green, Jason Statham, Mos Def and Donald Sutherland. It is a remake of the 1969 British film of the same name, and is about a team of thieves who plan to steal gold bullion from a former associate who double crossed them. Despite the shared title, the plot and characters of this film differ from those of its source material; Gray described the film as "an homage to the original."
Most of the film was shot on location in Venice, Italy and Los Angeles.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'The Italian Job (2003 film)' Start a new discussion about 'The Italian Job (2003 film)' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
The Italian Job is a 2003 American heist film directed by F. Gary Gray. The film stars Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Seth Green, Jason Statham, Mos Def and Donald Sutherland. It is a remake of the 1969 British film of the same name, and is about a team of thieves who plan to steal gold bullion from a former associate who double crossed them. Despite the shared title, the plot and characters of this film differ from those of its source material; Gray described the film as "an homage to the original."
Most of the film was shot on location in Venice, Italy and Los Angeles. Produced by Paramount Pictures, The Italian Job had a successful theatrical release in the summer of 2003, and grossed over $170 million worldwide. Critical response was generally positive. A sequel has reportedly been in development since 2004, but has yet to be produced as of 2009.
Plot
In Venice, Italy, retired safecracker John Bridger (Donald Sutherland) calls his daughter Stella Bridger (Charlize Theron) and tells her that he is participating in what will be his final heist. John then meets up with Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg) before setting the heist into motion. Their team consists of themselves and four others: Steve (Edward Norton) is the "inside man", Handsome Rob (Jason Statham) is a getaway driver, Left Ear (Mos Def) is an explosives expert, and Lyle, who later demands the handle "Napster" (Seth Green), is a technical expert. The heist is a success, but Steve betrays them all by taking the gold for himself; he also kills John Bridger and leaves the rest of the team for dead.
A year later back in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Stella is using her safecracking expertise to break into vaults as an assistant to law enforcement personnel. The team has tracked Steve down, and Charlie recruits Stella to participate with the team in stealing the gold from Steve since she has the required skill and motivation. The team travels to Los Angeles, California to begin their surveillance of Steve's house and plan the heist. Meanwhile, Steve attempts to sell his gold through a money launderer, but kills him when the launderer begins asking questions about the source of the gold. However, the money launderer is a cousin of a local Ukrainian gangster, who subsequently seeks vengeance for his cousin's murder. The team's initial plan is to have Steve stood up on a date with Stella—who posed as a cable repair woman to get into Steve's house and locate his safe—while the team would break into Steve's house, load the gold into three enhanced Mini Coopers modified by Rob's mechanical friend Wrench (Franky G), and use hacked traffic lights to make their escape. However, Charlie is forced to call it off because of a local party, which would witness the heist's execution. To maintain her cover, Stella goes on the date with Steve, but he figures out her real identity. Charlie then confronts Steve and promises that he will take back the stolen gold.
Now aware that Charlie and his team are alive, Steve makes preparations to move the gold. He obtains three armored trucks and a helicopter from which to monitor the trucks' transit. To counter the shell game, Charlie uses his control over the Los Angeles traffic system to isolate the one truck containing the gold, which Lyle manages to find, and gridlocks the entire city. The team then steals the gold from the truck and escape in their trio of Mini Coopers. Steve and his hired security guards pursue them through Los Angeles, and the team manages to lose them all, except Steve. He follows Charlie, but falls into a trap: Charlie has already convinced the Ukrainian that Steve is the man they want, and Charlie gives the Ukrainian a portion of the stolen gold. Steve is taken away by the gangster, and the team split up the remaining gold and raise a toast to Stella's father as they leave Los Angeles on the Coast Starlight. During the credits, it is shown what happens to each of the main characters afterwards.
Production
Development
Screenwriting team Donna and Wayne Powers had not seen the original 1969 film prior to their commission to write a remake. The duo viewed the film only once "because [they] wanted to get a sense of what it was about" in regards to its tone, and over the course of two years they developed a screenplay which was described by director F. Gary Gray as "inspired by the original." Gray, Powers and Powers, and executive producer James Dyer identified the most prominent similarities as the trio of Mini Coopers used by the thieves, as well as the titular heist involving the theft of gold bullion. Some sequences of the film were storyboarded and previsualized by Gray before production began.
Casting
Gray had been interested in working with Wahlberg since seeing his performance in Boogie Nights (1997). After reading the script for The Italian Job, Gray contacted Wahlberg, who "fell in love with it" after reading it himself. Green was also attracted to the project because of the script. Theron was Gray's first choice for the character of Stella Bridger, and Wahlberg also recommended her for the role. She spent time with a safecracker in preparing for the role. Gray's casting director suggested Statham for the role of getaway driver Handsome Rob, and Gray agreed with her choice. Norton took the role of Steve Frazelli due to a contractual obligation he had to fulfill. Wahlberg, Theron and Statham attended a special driving school for nearly a month during pre-production.
Filming
Most of The Italian Job was shot on location, at sites scouted by cinematographer Wally Pfister over 12 weeks during pre-production, but some scenes were filmed on sets. The Venice building where the film's titular, opening heist sequence takes place, the van from which the thieves survey Steve Frazelli's mansion, a hotel room, and the LACMTA Red Line subway tunnel were sets constructed at Downey Studios in California. For the scene in which an armored truck falls through Hollywood Boulevard and into the subway tunnel below, Pfister set up seven cameras to capture the vehicle's ~ descent. Three hundred cars were used to simulate the traffic jam at the intersection of Hollywood and Highland, which was controlled by the production crew for a week. Three of the 32 Mini Coopers used during principal photography were fitted with electric motors since combustion engines were not allowed in the subway tunnels where some scenes were shot. Other Mini Coopers were modified to allow for camera placement on and inside the vehicles.
Gray wanted the film to be as realistic as possible; accordingly, the actors did most of their own stunts, and computer-generated imagery was used very sparingly. Filming on location posed some challenges. The opening heist sequence in Venice, Italy, was strictly monitored by the local authorities due to the high speeds the boats were driven at. The frigid temperatures of the Italian Alps created problems during production: "The guns would jam, and if you could imagine not being able to walk 40 feet with a bottle of water without it freezing, those are the conditions we had to work in," Gray remarked. Also, pedestrians had to be allowed to use the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard between takes.
Release
Theatrical run and home media
The Italian Job premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on May 11, 2003, and was theatrically released in the United States on May 30, 2003. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $19,457,944, placing third in the box office. Paramount re-released the film on August 29, and by the time its theatrical release closed in November 2003, the film had grossed $106,128,601 in the United States and Canada and $69,941,570 overseas—$176,070,171 worldwide. It was the highest-grossing film produced by Paramount in 2003. The Italian Job was released on DVD by Paramount Home Entertainment October 7, 2003, and includes five bonus features on different aspects of the film's production, in addition to six deleted scenes. It was released on Blu-ray disc October 24, 2006, and on HD DVD August 8, 2006.
Critical reception
Based on 174 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, The Italian Job has an overall approval rating of 73 percent, with a weighted average score of 6.4/10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Cream of the Crop", which consists of popular and notable critics from top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 82 percent, with a weighted average score of 6.8/10. By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 68 out of 100 from the 37 reviews it collected.
Stephanie Zacharek, writing for Salon.com, liked the reinvention of the plot and the style and execution of the action sequences, specifically those involving the trio of Mini Coopers, which she wrote were the stars of the film. BBC reviewer Stella Papamichael gave The Italian Job 4 stars out of 5, and wrote that the "revenge plot adds wallop lacking in the original". Los Angeles Times reviewer Kevin Thomas praised the opening Venice heist sequence and the characterization of each of the thieves, but felt that the Los Angeles heist sequence was "arguably stretched out too long". Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars out of 4, writing that the film was "two hours of mindless escapism on a relatively skilled professional level." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle concurred, describing The Italian Job as pure but smart entertainment "plotted and executed with invention and humor". Reviewer James Berardinelli also gave the film 3 stars out of 4, and said that Gray had discovered the right recipe to do a heist movie: "keep things moving, develop a nice rapport between the leads, toss in the occasional surprise, and top with a sprinkling of panache." Varietys Robert Koehler compared The Italian Job to The Score (2001), another "finely-tuned heist pic" which also featured Edward Norton in a similar role. David Denby, writing for The New Yorker, praised Norton's performance, as well as those of Seth Green and Mos Def, and the lack of digital effects in the action sequences. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B- grade, comparing it positively to the 2000 remake of Gone in 60 Seconds, as well as the 2001 remake of Ocean's Eleven. New York Daily News reviewer Jack Matthews gave The Italian Job 2.5 stars out of 4, writing that the action sequences and plot twists were a "vast improvement" from the original, and that the Los Angeles heist sequence was "clever and preposterous". Matthews concurred with Zacharek on the use of the Mini Coopers in the film as a connection to the original, and as product placement for BMW. Mike Clark of USA Today also questioned the probability of the Los Angeles heist sequence and wrote that the film was "a lazy and in-name-only remake", giving it 2 stars out of 4. Peter Travers, writing for Rolling Stone, gave The Italian Job 1 star out of 4, describing the film as "a tricked-out remake of a heist flick that was already flat and formulaic in 1969." Travers enjoyed the comic relief in Green's and Def's characters, and added that Norton's was "[t]he most perversely magnetic performance" outside of the Mini Coopers, but felt that there was a lack of logic in the film.
Awards
Director F. Gary Gray won a Film Life Movie Award for Best Director at the 2004 American Black Film Festival. Clay Cullen, Michael Gaines, Jean Paul Ruggiero and Mike Massa won an award for Best Specialty Stunt at the 2004 Taurus World Stunt Awards for the boat chase through the canals of Venice.
Sequel
| There are a couple of scripts that have been written, but in the last six years since we made [The Italian Job], Paramount’s hierarchy has changed hands four times and it’s never seemed to be a priority for the studio to make the movie. [...] There’s enough of a fan outcry for it, but we just haven’t been able to get the studio to greenlight it.
—Seth Green on the possible sequel, September 7, 2008 |
A sequel to The Italian Job, tentatively titled The Brazilian Job, was in development by the summer of 2004, but has faced multiple delays. Principal photography was initially slated to begin in March 2005, with a projected release date in November or December 2005. However, the script was never finalized, and the release date was pushed back to sometime in 2006, and later summer 2007. Writer David Twohy approached Paramount Pictures with an original screenplay entitled The Wrecking Crew, and though the studio reportedly liked the idea, they thought it would work better as a sequel to The Italian Job. Director F. Gary Gray was expected to return, as well as most, if not all, of the original cast. At least two drafts of the script had been composed by August 2007, but the project had not been greenlit. In a March 2008 interview, Jason Statham said that "somebody should just erase it from IMDb.... and put it back on there when it's fully due and ready. [...] It's one of those things that's just sitting around." Green also stated, in September 2008, that the sequel is unlikely in the near future.
On November 16, 2008 Mark Wahlberg stated whilst appearing on the BBC show Top Gear that a sequel was very unlikely due to script problems. He also stated that he did not want to ruin an original British film.
External links
|
| |
|
|
.gif)
