How many heist movies have been made in the past 100 years? Probably not as many as hit man movies or serial killer movies, but nevertheless quite a few. Happily, there's always room for one more, if it's a good one, and Roger Donaldson's The Bank Job is indeed a good one. Moreover, I'd venture to say that it deserves to be called a crackerjack heist movie. Donaldson is about as far from a cinematic auteur as a director can get -- his disparate credits include The Bounty (1984), Cocktail (1988), Species (1995), Thirteen Days (2000), The Recruit (2003) and The World's Fastest Indian (2005) -- but that's where thirty years of experience and skill come in. The Bank Job takes a fairly complex story with multiple players on multiple sides, and presents it cleanly, briskly and excitingly.

Jason Statham leads the huge cast as Terry, a small time London hustler deep in debt, married with kids, and running a crooked auto shop -- just till he gets back on his feet. It's 1971 and an old friend, Martine Love (Saffron Burrows), who has been working as a model, shows up with a proposition. She is dating a secret agent who told her about a bank; the nearby tube trains have been setting off the alarms, so they're being replaced, and the bank will be without alarms for a time. Plus, if they hit the safe deposit boxes, there will be no way to trace the crime, based on the theory that most people won't want to disclose what it was they wanted to keep safe. Terry rounds up a couple of his mates and launches his scheme. They rent a storefront a couple of doors down from the bank, tunnel underground and re-surface inside the vault.

Australian-born Roger Donaldson, 62, may be the perfect example of a journeyman filmmaker, or a craftsman, the exact opposite of an auteur. You could watch back-to-back, for example, Cocktail (1988), Species (1995) and Thirteen Days (2000) and never guess that the same man made all three. His filmography is a perfect cross-section of Hollywood films, good and bad. He may be the only director nominated for both the Palme d'Or (for The Bounty in 1984) and a Razzie (for Cocktail).

The best thing about these types of filmmakers is that they're level-headed and tend to learn from their mistakes, picking up new skills and bringing fresh ideas to each new film. Likewise, he has worked with an impressive roster of actors and actresses, including many future stars and Oscar winners. He began as a still photographer and a documentary filmmaker before helping to organize the New Zealand Film Commission. His first films, Sleeping Dogs (1977) and Smash Palace (1981) helped put him on the map and brought him to Hollywood, where he has worked steadily for three decades. His previous film, The World's Fastest Indian (2005), was something of a personal film for him. He revisited a subject from a documentary he made in the 1970s, wrote the script and raised the money, shot partly in New Zealand where his roots are, and even reunited with Anthony Hopkins, the co-star of The Bounty.

I'll admit that for some silly reason seeing the poster for The Bank Job made me think that this flick might be a step above the usual Lock, Stock rip-off. Unfortunately, a new TV spot over at Coming Soon has me rethinking that position. CS is now hosting the new commercial for the crime caper and by the looks of things, this film is just going to be another paint-by-numbers British crime caper -- the legacy of Guy Ritchie lives on.

The Bank Job is based on the true story of the famous Baker Street Robbery. In 1971, over $900,000 was stolen from Lloyds Bank in London. The thieves were never caught and even stranger was the fact that a gag order was placed on the investigation. Well, 27 years later and director Roger Donaldson is claiming that finally the real story can be told. According to the film's writers and their "Deep Throat" source, the real reason for the heist was to cover up a scandal involving the Royal Family. The conspiracy theory also manages to incriminate high-ranking police officers, the secret service, politicians and a prominent member of the royal family.

So you can maybe understand why I'm a little disappointed that a fascinating story like this might be reduced to nothing but choppy editing and glib dialog. Screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (Flushed Away) have been trying to get the story of the Baker Street Robbery to the screen for years, so hopefully they wanted to do it right. I guess I will have to wait and see when The Bank Job hits theaters later this month.

Check out the theatrical trailer for The Bank Job after the jump ...

Everyone loves a heist movie, and now the story of one of the most infamous bank robberies in history is finally being made into a film. The Baker Street robbery was one of England's best-kept secrets for the last 35 years -- thanks to a government gag order. No one was ever arrested and the money was never found, so if you like to root for the bad guys in a movie, then this is the story for you. Production Weekly has reported that Roger Donaldson is now attached to direct Baker Street, starring Jason Statham (Crank). Donaldson's resume includes Thirteen Days and The Bounty; unfortunately it also includes Cocktail, but perhaps we can overlook that one. Production is set to begin in 2007 in the UK, with a script penned by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.

It looks like Jason Statham has pretty much set up camp in either action or heist movies, so this project seems like a logical step -- even with the director of Cocktail at the helm. With the upcoming heist flicks Oceans 13 and The Brazilian Job (which also includes Statham in the cast) you have to wonder: Is there room for one more? Or have audiences had all the heist they can handle?

[via ComingSoon.net and Production Weekly]

Mountain climbing movies aren't usually the biggest draw, but perhaps the problem with K2 and Vertical Limit was that they were fiction. After all, Touching the Void was based on a true story, and it did pretty well for a dramatization doc. And now comes word that the historical climb of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay, the first men to reach the top of Mount Everest, may be made into a movie. Roger Donaldson is currently attempting to get funding for the idea, which is currently called Higher Ground. No stranger to true stories, Donaldson directed The World's Fastest Indian, Thirteen Days, as well as the clearly titled Marie: A True Story. He recently had planned to make a movie about Ernest Hemingway, with Anthony Hopkins as the writer, but he had too many problems getting it under way.

But do people outside of New Zealand have much interest in Hillary? Sure, every school kid probably knows who he is, but knowing about a famous person and wanting to see a movie about his life are two very different things. Especially when that movie is going to consist of a lot of boring mountain climbing -- sorry, but there are only so many scenes you can have with a team of covered-up actors climbing up a snowy, windy peak, and still keep it interesting. Donaldson says Hillary's life will make, "an extraordinary movie." We'll see.