The Italian Job

Ahem. Is this thing on? Okay, I want very much to talk about hockey and the Colts and the Titans and even some politics...but the events of my evening have left me with no choice but to discuss a movie you all probably saw 16 months ago. I'm sorry if that upsets you, and I'll post on the other stuff tomorrow.

Just saw The Italian Job for the first time (on HBO, and yes, before you get all wise-ass on me, I know it's a year or two old). I originally avoided this movie because the trailers seemed more like a Mini Cooper commercial than a movie, and one of my biggest beefs in cinema is horrible trailers. It didn't help that there were actually Mini-Cooper commercials on television with clips of the film. But tonight, choking on my own boredom, I found myself with nothing else to watch (what, you thought I was going to watch the Athens opening ceremonies? Even when the Olympics were steroid-free-cool I hated the opening ceremonies. Why do I want to spend three hours watching a bunch of foreign strangers walk around a track?! They're not doing anything but walking and waving! As far as I'm concerned they haven't earned anything, especially the right to wave at me for three hours!). So I settled in for a Marky-Mark Funky Joint with a Big Beef and Cheddar and some curly fries. Now, maybe it was the curly fries, or the cheese sauce I paid 49 cents for to dip those fries in....or maybe it was the presence of Ed Norton (a performer I usually enjoy)....or maybe it was just that delicious Charlize....but I found the film really not all that bad after all. I know, that's some mighty high praise. It's kind of like The Score meets MTV's Pimp My Ride meets Training Day (after this movie I've made up my mind never to kill any Russian or Ukranian mafia guys in L.A., because that is an action that clearly results in lots of revenge-inspired pain.). My favorite part of the movie was the incessant use of that "What goes around" song. That was sarcasm. I didn't really like that (that's how sarcasm works). I hated that, in fact. I didn't really like that Norton decided it's cool to make two heist movies in two years where he plays the weasely double-crosser. I didn't really enjoy the Mini-Coopers, or the part where Xibit showed up to Pimp those rides. The running Napster Guy joke was old before they even used it once...that's just not funny. Wasn't happy when the best actor in the whole movie died in the first ten minutes (How do you kill off Donald MASH Sutherland and expect us to make due with Mos Def and that silly man from Snatch?). I actually think the best scene is that moment when the super fat guy named Skinny Pete (Oh, very original, Mr. Gray, name the fat guy Skinny....I have never seen the likes of a joke that good) was at the driving range and his Asian whore girlfriend keeps placing golf balls in front of his putter saying "I know you'll get this one baby."
Let's also talk about the all-important, crux of the plan.....the Seth-Green-Can-Control-The-Traffic-Lights gimmick. Sure, I liked the idea, but when the bastard turns on the green light so the armored car can turn left...only the cars in that one lane turn. There's a massive pile-up on every street in L.A. and none of the other cars decided to try and escape that way too? Only the one lane? Come on. And why the hell is Spiderman in that movie?! Can anyone explain that to me. It was a Paramount film, right? And right after the street swallows the armored car, in the big crowd reaction shot...there is Spiderman. And what's worse is that he's freaking out like everyone else standing around there. They're all screaming and running and Spiderman's looking left and right like the squirrel I ran over on my way home from Arby's. What the freaking heck?! Here, in case you missed it, are this movie's cameos: Donald Freaking Sutherland (who should always get the main role in any movie he graces with his presence), Wussy-Ass Girly Spiderman (who has left the crime fighting life apparently, but still insists on wearing the suit), and the guy who invented the program that taught millions of college students to steal music. Nice. Okay, really...I didn't hate it as much as it sounds. But it was such a buzzed-about movie...a sleeper hit that now has a sequel in the works...and yet there's not an original bone in its body. At least the movie Heist had me so frustrated with confusion that I cared about what happened (and it also had Gene Hackman, who makes any movie a little better just by signing his name on the contract). I don't know, am I alone here? Mostly I hate Charlize's character--or more correctly...her character's inexplicable ability to crack safes. I guess I can understand that since her dead underused dad cracked safes that she might somehow find her way into that business. But she uses drills and wire cutters and tools....until the end...with the dreadful sounding Glass Plate Safe...when she must put aside her tools and "go by feel." How the f*** is she able to do this? Don't freaking tell me "her dad taught her how to feel the clicks, no matter what flashback scene you think you remember...because a main tentpole of her character's conflict is that she never got to see her dad. He was never home. He was always in prison or in strange countries stealing people's Knick-knacks. She even cries about it for the love of all things holy! But when the Scary Glass Plate Safe shows up (seriously...scarier than Darth Vader, Jaws, and the exorcist put together), she's suddenly able to just chuck the tools and go by feel?! If it's that freaking easy then why does Marky Mark even need her ass? Why didn't he just give it a try? I mean, if the clicks on the numbers in the combination are going to be louder than the clicks made by the rest of the numbers, then who even needs a damn drill in the first place? The only guy in the crew who couldn't do it is Left Ear (another in this movie's long line of original and inspired character names), who...surprisingly, lost hearing in his right ear because of a freak cherry bomb in the toilet accident (and who hasn't?).

Okay, I'm done. Because I could seriously go for hours. I didn't even dislike the movie that much, but when I tried to write about how it was okay....I kept thinking of all the idiocy it displayed. Who are the ad wizards that came up with this one? And normal people like you and me will never even get to pitch our movie ideas, because apparently the public likes movies where nothing makes sense. Okay...but don't tell me my bullcrap detector wasn't working those many months ago when I had the gut instinct to stay away from this thing. I know better. I always do.