The Bank Job

The Bank Job is a 2008 British crime film directed by Roger Donaldson and starring Jason Statham, based on the 1971 Baker Street robbery in central London, from which the money and valuables stolen were never recovered. The producers allege that the story was prevented from being told because of a D-Notice (now known as a DA-Notice) government gagging request, allegedly to protect a prominent member of the British Royal Family.[3][4] According to the producers, this movie is intended to reveal the truth for the first time,[5] although it includes significant elements of fiction and the extent to which it represents historical fact is difficult to determine.

The premiere was held in London on 18 February 2008, and the film was released in the UK on 28 February 2008.

Petty-criminal-gone-straight Terry Leather (Jason Statham) owns a failing car-sales garage being harassed by two debt-collectors. His old girlfriend Martine (Saffron Burrows) offers Terry a chance to earn enough money to never worry about debt again: a bank robbery in Baker Street, London. Terry gathers a bunch of petty-criminal friends to help execute the plan. They lease a shop two lots away from the bank and start digging a tunnel underneath the middle shop (a chicken fast-food restaurant) in order to reach the underground bank vault. Terry employs Eddie (Michael Jibson), a worker in his garage, as a "watchman" with a walkie-talkie to sit on the roof of the building opposite and keep a look out for trouble.

What they don't know is that Martine, who has been caught smuggling heroin into Britain and desperately wants to avoid jail, is setting them up on behalf of MI5, which wants the contents of a certain safe deposit box (No. 118) within the bank. This safe deposit box contains compromising photos of a female member of the British Royal Family (identified in the film as Princess Margaret) participating in a threesome. The photos are in a box belonging to a black militant who calls himself Michael X; he is using the photos to avoid trouble with the Metropolitan Police, and MI5 is desperate to keep the photos out of circulation.

As Terry and his crew dig, their radio chatter draws the attention of a local amateur radio operator, who listens in on the conversation and realises he's overhearing a bank robbery in progress. He calls the police, but with a ten-mile radius to search and a lack of concrete details, they fail to pin the robbery down.

After they have broken in and begin looting the vault, Martine goes for the deposit-box with the photos. A suspicious Terry opens the box with her and, upon seeing the pictures, knows that Martine has a hidden agenda. In addition to those photos, further photos of a number of high-ranking government officials are found, at the top a senior MP in compromising positions in a local S&M brothel. The robbers pocket these with the money and other valuables. Terry arranges for alternate transportation "to be safe", throwing off MI5 who had intended to immediately intercept them.

Guy (James Faulkner) and Bambas (Alki David), leave with their share of the spoils. When Terry confronts Martine over the photos, she explains their predicament. Meanwhile, the robbery is discovered, and the police — both corrupt ones receiving payoffs and honest ones — start their investigation. MI5 is likewise searching. Lew Vogel (David Suchet), a local club owner, is worried about the contents of his ledger, which lists every payoff he's made to the police, which was stolen during the robbery. He also phones Michael X to inform him that his box containing the royal 'portraits' has gone missing. Michael X starts to get suspicious of Gale Benson, a British spy who has befriended his brother and gone with the family to Trinidad.

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