| The Italian Job | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | F. Gary Gray |
| Produced by | Donald De Line |
| Written by | Donna Powers Wayne Powers Screenplay Troy Kennedy Martin 1969 screenplay |
| Starring | Mark Wahlberg Charlize Theron Edward Norton Seth Green Jason Statham Mos Def Donald Sutherland |
| Music by | John Powell |
| Cinematography | Wally Pfister |
| Editing by | Richard Francis-Bruce Christopher Rouse |
| Studio | De Line Pictures |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | Tribeca Film Festival: May 11, 2003 United States: May 30, 2003 France: September 17, 2003 United Kingdom: September 19, 2003 |
| Running time | 111 minutes |
| Country | France United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English Russian Italian German |
| Budget | $60 million[1] |
| Box office | $176.07 million[1] |
The Italian Job is a 2003 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 an American remake of a 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."[2]
Most of the film was shot on location in Venice and Los Angeles, where canals and streets, respectively, were temporarily shut down during principal photography. Produced by Paramount Pictures, The Italian Job was theatrically released in the United States on May 30, 2003, and grossed over $176 million worldwide. Critical response was generally positive, with publications highlighting the action sequences. A sequel, The Brazilian Job, has reportedly been in development since 2004, but has yet to be produced as of 2012.
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In Venice, retired safecracker John Bridger (Sutherland) calls his daughter Stella Bridger (Theron) and tells her that he bought her something sparkling and that he will participate in his final heist. John then meets up with Charlie Croker (Wahlberg) before setting the heist into motion. Their team consists of themselves and four others: Steve (Norton) is the "inside man", Handsome Rob (Statham) is a getaway driver, Left Ear (Def) is an explosives expert, and Lyle (Green) is a technical expert. The target of the heist is $35 million worth of gold, which was stolen few days ago. They arrive with a boat in the house that they surveilanced, and Steve breaks into the apartment. Steve and Left Ear plant the bombs on the wall to bomb it, so that the safe could fall downstairs. They manage to bomb it, and Lyle and Rob drive away with the safe. They drag away the mobsters, but is revealed that the safe isn't on their boat, but in the water below. Rob and Lyle manage to escape, and Left Ear, Charlie and John steal the gold. The heist is a success, but when they drive on the bridge of the Alpes, two Range Rovers block their path, and Steve pulls the gun on Rob, revealing that he only wants to keep the gold for himself. John tries to get out, telling that he can't escape where they can't find him, with Steve replying that he is right, and subsequently shooting him. Rob drives the truck into the river, and they take hydrogen bottles that they used. Steve fires into the water, to ensure that they are dead. But they swim out, with Charlie crying over John's body, and Rob, Left Ear and Lyle standing next to him.
A year later, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Stella is using her safe cracking expertise to break into vaults as an assistant to law enforcement personnel. The team has tracked Steve down with the help of Skinny Pete (a very ironic name, considering he's 300 pounds), and Charlie tries to recruit Stella to participate with the team in stealing the gold from Steve since she has the required skill and motivation. She refuses at first, thinking that he is interested only in gold, and not revenge, but when she sees old family photos and a necklace (that John bought her on the day of the original heist), she changes her mind. The team travels to Los Angeles, California to begin their surveillance of Steve's house and plan the heist. Meanwhile, Steve is selling his gold through a money launderer named Yevhen (Krutonog), who owns a jewellery store as a cover up. 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 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 the plan 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, speaking quietly with him, saying that he has no idea how much he is stopping himself from killing him then and there. Steve says that he "blew the element of surprise", after which Charlie punches him in the face, and leaves with the team. Steve tries to sell the rest of the gold over Yevhen, but he kills him after he realizes he knows about the Venice heist, unaware that Yevhen is the cousin of a local Ukrainian boss Maskhow Olek Krupa, who arrives at the shop just as Steve escapes. Now with no options, Steve makes preparations to move the gold, not knowing that Charlie heard about this. Charlie starts to plan about the new heist, but then he gets a call from Skinny Pete.
Meanwhile, Maskhow, angry about his cousin's death, meets a guy named Vance at the junkyard, which is his cover up buisness. Vance tells him that he used to work at Yevhen's shop, and that the guy was asking about the gold. He describes the person, and Maskhow goes to his hideout, revealing that the person is Skinny Pete. Maskhow pulls out an axe as a threat, and askes him why he was asking about the gold. After they leave, Skinny Pete calls Charlie and accuses him of killing Yevhen. Charlie refutes the accusation, and he asks him for help. Lyle (now called Napster), makes a break into the Los Angeles traffic system, and Left Ear sets the expolsives he got from Pete in the subway.
On the day of the heist, Left Ear and Rob arrive at Steve's mansion to take care of the trucks, and Stella and Charlie are waiting in midtown. Rob spots the truck, but it is revealed that he brought three armored trucks instead of one. They proceed with a plan, and Rob and Left Ear return to midtown to join Charlie and Stella. Napster indentifies the right truck by measuring the back wheels (due to safe and gold weight). Napster blocks the whole traffic system, and comands the truck trough traffic to the direct spot on the street (because of the explosives right below the road in the subway), where Wrench is waiting. Meanwhile, Napster enters the subway control and Charlie, Stella, Rob and Left Ear enter the subway with their Mini Coppers. They arrive at the located position, and Napster blocks the tunnel with an oncoming train. They blow up the road under the truck. Rob fires the sleeping gas to distract the guards, and they open the door to the safe, revealing that this isn't the safe that they expected to see. Stella tries to open it with tools, but the screw is blocked into the door, and she opens the door with the feeling, how her father worked. They measure the gold, and Napster calculated that there is $27 million worth there. They load the gold into the cars, but security guards that Steve sent into the subway are on their tail. They escape via the subway sistem. Steve follows them, and Charlie tricks him into flying into a parking garage, causing the helicopter to break down. Steve steals a truck and follows him to the train station. Steve bribes Wrench to let him into the train cargo where the Minis are stashed, but he only encounters Charlie. He pulls out his gun, demanding his gold, but the gangsters disarm him and he realizes he has fallen into a trap: Charlie has already informed Maskhow that Steve is the person that killed Yevhen, and Charlie gives the Maskhow a portion of the stolen gold for helping the group. Steve is taken away by the gangsters, begging them not to shoot him, and Maskhow tells him that he won't kill him, but he will take him to his office, telling that he "will be interested in the machinery there". The team splits up the remaining gold and raise a toast to Stella's father as they leave Los Angeles on the Coast Starlight. During the credits, a series of scenes show what each member of the team does with their portion of the money, With Rob buying an Aston Martin, Napster a huge stereo, Left Ear a house in Spain, and Charlie with Stella in Venice.
Neal Purvis and Robert Wade wrote a draft of a remake of the 1969 British crime comedy The Italian Job which was rejected by Paramount.[3] Screenwriting team Donna and Wayne Powers were subsequently commissioned to write a remake. The duo viewed the original film, which neither had seen before, only once "because [they] wanted to get a sense of what it was about" in regards to its tone.[4] Over the course of two years and through 18 drafts,[3] they developed a screenplay which was described by director F. Gary Gray as "inspired by the original."[4] 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.[5][6] Some sequences of the film were storyboarded and previsualized by Gray before production began.[7]
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.[5] Green was also attracted to the project because of the script.[8] 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.[5][9] Gray's casting director Sheila Jaffe suggested Statham for the role of getaway driver Handsome Rob, and Gray agreed with her choice.[5] Norton took the role of Steve Frazelli, due to a contractual obligation he had to fulfill.[10] Wahlberg, Theron, and Statham attended special driver's training sessions at Willow Springs International Motorsports Park[11] for nearly a month during pre-production.[12]
Gray and cinematographer Wally Pfister worked together to develop a visual style for the film before production began. They viewed car commercials and magazine photographs, as well as chase sequences from The French Connection (1971), Ronin (1998), and The Bourne Identity (2002) as visual references.[7] Pfister wanted "dark textures and undertones and strong contrast"; he collaborated with production designer Charlie Wood on the color palette, and the two would confer with Gray on their ideas.[7] Paramount preferred that The Italian Job not be shot in anamorphic format, despite Pfister's wishes to do so. Gray wanted a widescreen aspect ratio, so they chose to shoot the film in Super 35, which has a 2.4:1 aspect ratio.[7] Once principal photography began, Gray frequently utilized dollies, as well as Steadicams and a Technocrane, to keep the cameras almost constantly moving.[7]
Most of The Italian Job was shot on location, at sites Pfister scouted over 12 weeks during pre-production, but some scenes were filmed on sets. The Venice building where the film's 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 ~30 foot (9.1 m) descent.[7] 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.[5][7] Three of the 32 custom-built[13] 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.[12][14] The director remarked that "[the Mini Coopers are] part of the cast."[15]
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.[5][12][16] The second unit, under Alexander Witt and Josh Bleibtreu, filmed establishing shots, the Venice canal chase sequence, and the Los Angeles chase sequence over a period of 40 days.[7][11] 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.[7] 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.[5] Pedestrians had to be allowed to use the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard between takes.[16] Also, scenes which took place on freeways and city streets were only filmed on weekends.[11]
The Italian Job, as of January 2010 has grossed $106,128,601 since it has been released on May 30, 2003. It earned $19,457,944 in its opening weekend.[17]
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,[1] placing third in the box office.[18] Paramount re-released the film on August 29,[19] 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.[1] It was the highest-grossing film produced by Paramount in 2003.[20] 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.[21] It was released on HD DVD August 8, 2006[22] and on Blu-ray Disc October 24, 2006.[23]
Based on 177 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.[24] 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.[25]
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.[26] 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".[27] 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".[28] 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."[29] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle concurred, describing The Italian Job as pure but smart entertainment "plotted and executed with invention and humor".[30] 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."[31] Variety's Robert Koehler compared The Italian Job to The Score (2001), another "finely tuned heist pic" which also featured Edward Norton in a similar role.[32]
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.[33] 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.[34] 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".[35] 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.[36] 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.[10]
F. Gary Gray won a Film Life Movie Award for Best Director at the 2004 American Black Film Festival.[37] Clay Cullen, Michael Caines, 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.[38] The Italian Job was nominated for the 2003 Saturn Award for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film,[39] but the award went to Kill Bill.[40] In April 2009, IGN named the film's Los Angeles chase sequence one of the top 10 car chases of the 21st century.[41]
Criminologist Nicole Rafter saw The Italian Job as part of a revival of the heist film at the turn of the century, along with The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) and Ocean's Eleven (2001), both of which were also remakes of 1960s heist films.[42] In describing his theory of a "team film" genre, film scholar Dr. Jeremy Strong writes that The Italian Job could be categorized as such, along with The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and more recently The Usual Suspects (1995) and Mission: Impossible (1996).[43] He states that
a team film involves a group working towards a particular objective. However, goal-orientation is a widely shared plot attribute of many texts and genres and it is also the case that the overwhelming majority of films involve a plurality of interacting characters. An element that distinguishes the team film then is that a heightened significance is afforded to the group as the means by which a given objective is attempted. [...] From film to film there is variation in the extent to which particular central characters may determine events and take up screen time but team films are recognizable by their insistence upon the relationship between group and goal.[43]
Strong additionally makes a direct comparison between The Italian Job and Mission: Impossible, citing the plot device of "a first task that elucidates the roles and skills of team members but which is sabotaged by betrayal, necessitating a re-constitution of the team."[43]
The use of BMW's then-new line of retro-styled Minis in the film was mentioned by critics and business analysts alike as a prime example of modern product placement, or more specifically "brand integration".[44] Film critic Joe Morgenstern called The Italian Job "the best car commercial ever".[13] Stephanie Zacharek and Jack Matthews both noted the cars' prominence in their reviews of the film, also writing that their presence served as a connection to the 1969 film upon which it was based.[26][35] BusinessWeek reported in April 2004 that sales of the Mini in 2003—the year in which The Italian Job was theatrically released—had increased 22 percent over the previous year.[45]
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.
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.[47] However, the script was never finalized, and the release date was pushed back to sometime in 2006,[48] and later summer 2007.[49] 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.[50] F. Gary Gray was slated to return, as well as most, if not all, of the original cast.[49][50] At least two drafts of the script had been composed by August 2007, but the project had not been greenlit.[51]
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."[52] Producer Donald De Line revealed in June that a script for The Brazilian Job had been developed and budgeted, but "a lot of things were happening with various management changes and it got tabled." Describing its story, he said it "starts in Brazil, the set up is in Rio and the picture moves to Belgium where there’s something involving diamonds."[53] However, Green stated that September that the sequel was unlikely in the near future.[46] On March 9, 2009, De Line said that "[we] have a version at Paramount that we're talking very serious about", additionally mentioning that the cast was interested in the project.[54] Neal Purvis and Robert Wade had been working on a draft of the sequel that year.[55] The Daily Record reported in September that Theron was signed up for the film.[56] That October, Gray said that he enjoyed making The Italian Job and hoped that he would still be interested in directing the sequel if the script became finalized and mentioned that it would be dependent upon scheduling.[57]
In January 2010, Twohy was quoted in an interview as saying "The Brazilian Job probably isn’t happening. I wrote it years ago, and they just keep rolling it over on IMDb. Paramount—what can I say?"[58] When asked about the sequel that June, Green said "The Brazilian Job doesn't exist actually" and called it a "wonderful myth of IMDb."[59]
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