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Loose remake of The Italian Job, minus the fun, charm and originality that made the 1969 film a classic. This is one of Michael Caine's direct-to-video efforts and by those standards it's a good 'un, but of course that's not saying much. Okay, so, mixed up in a plot (well you could call it that) that sees an armoured van containing paper used to print money being targeted by Caine and co, is James Fox playing every country toff ever to appear onscreen. He wears a suit and unofficially organises the operation - think Noël Coward's Mr Bridger but as a nasty piece of work. Rounding out the cast, quite literally, are Rae Baker's prostitute replacing Maggie Blye, and a fat school kid replacing Benny Hill (although he likes them slim and preferably posh). Make of that what you will. Caine's on autopilot (hard gangster/himself), but you can't blame him considering the total rot on show and an unintentionally hilarious attempt at friendship/sentiment between said school kid. It's not completely unwatchable but it's about as exciting as, well, no, it's not comparable to anything. Gotta hand it to the director and writer for the reworking of the cliff-hanger ending in which the vehicle actually goes over the cliff (I say cliff, it's about five feet high), running over an estranged James Fox in the process and randomly exploding without explanation (I thought that was a sixties thing).
1/5
