Scoop Review: The Bank

Opening at the Embassy Theatre on March 28th and moving to the Paramount Theatre from April 4th.

The short version:
Smart, chilling, sexy. Go.

The long version:
The Bank looks good, sounds good and boy does it feel good. Then, I guess any movie that calls banks 'bastards without borders' was going to get my attention.

The cunning manipulations of people out to make their millions from the mistakes of others on the stock market are chilling. Of course, people really are desperate to predict the stock market. Tap in the words 'chaos and stock market' into your search engine and see how many hits you get. Robert Connolly (writer/director) said he got 20,000 and I was impressed with the desperation, or maybe it's rational dedication? I just tried it out myself and got 124,000.

Thing is, this Jim Doyle (David Wenham) has almost worked out how to predict a stock market crash. His genius in math and fractal theory (predicting 'patterns' in chaos) is about to pay off. All he really needs now is the computer big enough to do it.

Enter Simon O'Reilly (Anthony LaPaglia), cool, calm and pure evil - the 'big swinging dick' of the 'bastards without borders club' who is out to prove himself. Your average CEO of an international bank, that is.

What about the people stomped over in the rush for the gold? They're here, they're real. They're us and our next door neighbours, the business down the road. True grit.

The Bank is full of style and flair right from the opening credits to the closing shot. Wells and Hitchcock could've been sitting in the back row quietly nodding because this team has some real talent.

Cinematographer Tristin Martin deserves a special mention - you know a cinematographer is good when you come out of a movie thinking you'd like to frame about 50 shots.

The music is perfect. Even the graphics are gorgeous.

And of course the Director Robert Connolly - Variety put him on their 'producers to watch' list in 1999 (this is his first feature as a director) and Producer John Maynard (now that's ironic - bit close to Maynard Keynes 'n all), whose name features in a list of excellent films including An Angel at My Table... Together they're brilliant. And last night, they just seemed to be a couple of friendly guys with a thing about banks.

Lights, camera, action - it's all there. So if you've ever used a bank, go.

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