mrschristine.com

The Italian Job

Published 2013-08-11

The Italian Job

Film info

  • Title The Italian Job
  • Director Peter Collinson
  • Year 1969
  • Run time 1hr 39m
  • Genres Action, Thriller, Comedy, Crime
  • Tagline Introducing the plans for a new business venture
  • Cast Michael Caine

A spectacular robbery of gold bullion in Turin is masterminded by an older gentleman from a British prison where he is lord of all he surveys.

Live Blog

TimeComment
1:00Those are some Top Gear roads right there.
5:00Look at Michael Caine, so sprightly, so youthful!
5:00What kind of prison serves meals four times a day?
10:00So he has a suit and a car, now it must be time to get back into trouble.
14:00Hitching a ride on a milk float! That's the kind of thing Marty McFly would do.
16:00Ooh, computer program on a roll of film. Retro.
17:00How rich do you have to be to have someone pick up and pass you the phone sitting right next to you?
18:00She put the phone down for him too. Quite the job description.
21:00This Charlie Croker talks to himself a lot.
29:00The lady likes to put pink bows on her cats. Just sayin'.
32:00Bill Bailey is part of the gang!
34:00"The only way to get through it is we all work together as a team. And that means you do everything I say."
36:00Yay doors!
43:00There are the minis. This is an actual Mini adventure.
52:00Got to love the old computers. So big, so unwieldy, but without them where would we be?
1:07:00This is a ridiculous traffic jam. I would just get out and walk!
1:17:00These Minis really are quite cool, whizzing about all over the place, tail-happy because of the gold in the boot. I want one!
1:30:00I'm super impressed with their getting cars onto the bus antics.
1:31:00Not so impressed with pushing the cars over a cliff.
1:36:00Well, this is Mission Impossible tense.

Thoughts

We watched this as part of the Sidepodfilmclub, so commenting along with lots of others as we all enjoyed the film together. I wrote these notes in the Factbyte Factbox, so they may be less specific than normal and the timings are by the minute not the second. Hadn't seen the film, and didn't really know what it was about, other than doors and Minis.

Considering what a classic and well-loved film this is, I was a bit disappointed. It certainly was good once the job actually started, and the Minis starting careering about all over the place. But it was quite slow to begin, and Charlie didn't seem all that nice a character really, I wasn't completely sure I wanted him to succeed.

Although then of course, with the literal cliffhanger, we don't know for sure that he did!

Rating: 3 / 5

← Previous Gangster Squad
Next → The Prestige