''The Italian Job'' is a 2003 American

heist A heist is a robbery or burglary, especially from an institution such as a bank or museum. Heist may also refer to: Places *Heist, Germany, a municipality in Schleswig-Holstein *Heist-aan-Zee, West Flanders, Belgium *Heist-op-den-Berg, Antwerp, ...

action film Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include lif ...

directed by F. Gary Gray and starring

Mark Wahlberg Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg (born June 5, 1971), former stage name Marky Mark, is an American actor, businessman, and former rapper. He has received multiple accolades, including a BAFTA Award, and nominations for two Academy Awards, thre ...

, Charlize Theron,

Edward Norton Edward Harrison Norton (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe Award and three Academy Award nominations. Born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised ...

, Jason Statham, Seth Green,

Mos Def Yasiin Bey (; born Dante Terrell Smith, December 11, 1973), previously and more commonly known by his stage name Mos Def (), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and actor. His hip hop career began in 1994, alongside his siblings in the s ...

and

Donald Sutherland Donald McNichol Sutherland (born 17 July 1935) is a Canadian actor whose film career spans over six decades. He has been nominated for nine Golden Globe Awards, winning two for his performances in the television films '' Citizen X'' (1995) a ...

. An American

remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the sa ...

of the 1969 British film, but with an original story, the plot follows a motley crew of thieves who plan to steal gold from a former associate who double-crossed them. Despite the shared title, the plot and characters of this film differ from those of its source material; Gray described the film as "an homage to the original". Most of the film was shot on location in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

and

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

, where canals and streets, respectively, were temporarily shut down during

principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

. Distributed by

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

, ''The Italian Job'' was theatrically released in the United States on May 30, 2003, and grossed over $176 million worldwide. Critical response was largely positive, with publications comparing it favorably to the original film while highlighting the action sequences, performances of the cast and humor. A sequel, ''The Brazilian Job'', was reportedly in development in 2004, but the sequel was subsequently cancelled.

Plot

Professional safecracker John Bridger's team is set to steal $35 million worth of gold bullion from a safe in

from Italian gangsters who had stolen it weeks earlier. Professional fixer Charlie Croker, computer expert Lyle or "Napster", wheelman Handsome Rob, inside man Steve, and explosives expert Left Ear comprise the team. Although the heist is successful, Steve double-crosses them as they drive towards Austria with the bullion. With another crew he takes it for himself and kills John. Rob drives the van over the bridge into the water to protect the others, using air tanks from the heist to stay alive. Steve leaves them for dead. A year later in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, Charlie finds Steve, under a new identity and is laundering the gold through Ukrainian jeweler Yevhen to finance his lavish lifestyle in

. Charlie gathers the team, and also recruits John's daughter Stella, a skilled private safe expert, offering her the chance to avenge her father's death. They stake out Steve's mansion, and Stella, disguised as a cable technician, maps out its interior and determines the location of Steve's safe containing the bullion. Unaware of Stella's identity, Steve asks her out on a date. The plan is to blow the safe while Steve is away on his supposed date, using three heavily modified Mini Coopers to transport the gold out of the mansion. Supplier Skinny Pete gets the explosives and mechanic Wrench modifies the cars. On Steve's last visit to Yevhen, Yevhen accidentally reveals that he knows about the Venice heist. To cover his tracks, Steve kills him. Mashkov, the leader of a Ukrainian

crime family A crime family is a unit of an organized crime syndicate, particularly in Italian organized crime and especially in the Sicilian Mafia and Italian American Mafia, often operating within a specific geographic territory or a specific set of activit ...

and Yehven's cousin, traces the gold back to Skinny Pete via Yevhen's ex-employee Vance. On the night of the planned heist, the crew discovers that Steve's neighbors are having a party so they have to abort, as the explosives would draw attention. Stella still has to meet Steve, but inadvertently gives away her identity by using her dad's catchphrase. The team arrives to protect her, and Steve taunts them as he says he still has the upper hand. Steve plans to transport the gold to

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley of ...

by armored car to a private plane from LAX which Napster hears through his tap on his phone. Charlie and his gang make a new plan to steal the gold en route to the airport by hijacking the city's traffic control system, forcing the armored car to a planned spot where they will execute the heist. On the day, they are surprised when three armored trucks leave Steve's mansion, but Napster determines which one carries the bullion and manipulates the traffic accordingly. As Steve is monitoring the transport by helicopter, they maneuver the car to the target spot and detonating explosives to drop the part of the road with the car into the subway tunnel below. Opening the truck, they find the gold in a different safe from the one that held it before. Struggling initially, Stella cracks it open and they divide the $27 million in gold among the three Coopers. They race from the subway to the

LA River LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...

and through the city, pursued by Steve's henchmen on motorcycles, with Napster creating a green wave to evade traffic. Stella, Handsome Rob, and Left Ear head to Union Station, while Charlie lures Steve away in his helicopter. Steve tries to kill him by having his helicopter pilot destroy Charlie's Mini Cooper, but the helicopter's tail rotor is damaged, grounding it. Steve carjacks a

Ford Bronco The Ford Bronco is a model line of sport utility vehicles manufactured and marketed by Ford. The first SUV model developed by the company, five generations of the Bronco were sold from the 1966 to 1996 model years. A sixth generation of the m ...

to follow Charlie to Union Station, where the cars are loaded onto a train car with the help of Wrench. He tries to bribe Wrench to let him in, but finds Charlie and the others waiting. When Steve pulls a gun, demanding the gold back, Mashkov and his armed men disarm him. Charlie explains that he has offered Mashkov part of the gold and Steve in exchange for helping with security protection (it is implied that Skinny Pete put him in touch). Stella punches Steve in the face as revenge. Mashkov then takes him away, implying he intends to not kill him, but rather torture him for killing Yevhen. The group boards the train as it departs to

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Aston Martin Vanquish, getting pulled over by a beautiful policewoman, Left Ear buys a mansion in

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The ...

with a room for his shoe collection, while Napster buys a powerful stereo capable of blowing a woman's clothes off. Meanwhile, Charlie takes John's advice about finding someone he wants to spend the rest of his life with, and he and Stella travel to Venice together.

Cast

as Charlie Croker, the team's leader and master thief. He seeks revenge for the murder of his mentor, John Bridger. * Charlize Theron as Stella Bridger, John's daughter and a professional

safe-cracker Safe-cracking is the process of opening a safe without either the combination or the key. Physical methods Different procedures may be used to crack a safe, depending on its construction. Different procedures are required to open different safes ...

. She uses tools and technology to open safes, in contrast to her father who opened them by feel. *

as Steve Frazelli, a thief who turned on Charlie's crew and left them for dead after stealing the gold from them. *

as John Bridger, Stella's father and safe-cracker who is pulled in by Charlie for one more job. * Jason Statham as Handsome Rob, the team's wheelman and a charming ladies man. * Seth Green as Lyle, the team's computer expert. He claims he is the real inventor of

Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Sh ...

, insisting that Shawn Fanning stole the idea from him. Fanning appears as himself in a cameo role. *

as Gilligan "Left Ear", the team's demolition and explosives expert. * Franky G as Wrench, a mechanic who Rob contacts to engineer the Minis to carry the gold. He later joins the team for the heist. * Boris Lee Krutonog as Yevhen, a jewelry store owner with ties to the Ukrainian mafia. He's a conspiracy theorist who is buying the stolen gold bars from Steve. * Aleksander Krupa as Mashkov, a member of the Ukrainian mafia family and Yevhen's cousin. He operates a junkyard as a base as he searches for Yehven's killer.

Production

Development

Neal Purvis and Robert Wade wrote a draft of a remake of the 1969 British crime film ''

The Italian Job ''The Italian Job'' is a 1969 British comedy caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley, directed by Peter Collinson, and starring Michael Caine. The film's plot centres around Cockney criminal Charlie Croker, r ...

'' which was rejected by Paramount. Screenwriting team Donna and Wayne Powers were subsequently commissioned to write a remake. The duo viewed the original film, which neither had seen before, only once "because heywanted to get a sense of what it was about" in regards to its tone. Over the course of two years and through 18 drafts, they developed a screenplay which was described by director F. Gary Gray as "inspired by the original." Gray, Powers and Powers, and executive producer James Dyer identified the most prominent similarities as the trio of Mini Coopers used by the thieves, as well as the titular heist involving the theft of gold bullion. Some sequences of the film were

storyboard A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, in th ...

ed and previsualized by Gray before production began.

Casting

Gray had been interested in working with Wahlberg since seeing his performance in ''

Boogie Nights ''Boogie Nights'' is a 1997 American period comedy-drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It is set in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley and focuses on a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a popular star of pornograph ...

'' (1997). After reading the script for ''The Italian Job'', Gray contacted Wahlberg, who "fell in love with it" after reading it himself. Green was also attracted to the project because of the script. Theron was Gray's first choice for the character of Stella Bridger, and Wahlberg also recommended her for the role. She spent time with a safecracker in preparation for the role. Gray's casting director Sheila Jaffe suggested Statham for the role of getaway driver Handsome Rob, and Gray agreed with her choice. Norton took the role of Steve Frazelli, due to a contractual obligation he had to fulfill. Wahlberg, Theron, and Statham attended special driver's training sessions at Willow Springs International Motorsports Park for nearly a month during pre-production.

Filming

Gray and cinematographer Wally Pfister worked together to develop a visual style for the film before production began. They viewed car commercials and magazine photographs, as well as chase sequences from '' The French Connection'' (1971), '' Ronin'' (1998), and '' The Bourne Identity'' (2002) as visual references. Pfister wanted "dark textures and undertones and strong contrast"; he collaborated with production designer Charlie Wood on the color palette, and the two would confer with Gray on their ideas. This was Wally Pfister's first experience using the Super 35 format since Paramount preferred that the film not be shot in the

anamorphic format Anamorphic format is the cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio. It also refers to the projection format in which a distort ...

, despite Pfister's wishes to do so. However, Gray still wanted a widescreen aspect ratio, just like the origin, so they chose to shoot the film in Super 35 for a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Once principal photography began, Gray frequently utilized dollies, as well as Steadicams and a Technocrane, to keep the cameras almost constantly moving. Most of ''The Italian Job'' was shot on location, at sites Pfister scouted over 12 weeks during pre-production, but some scenes were filmed on sets. The Venice building where the film's opening heist sequence takes place, the van from which the thieves survey Steve Frazelli's mansion, a hotel room, and the LACMTA Red Line subway tunnel were sets constructed at Downey Studios in California. For the scene in which an armored truck falls through

Hollywood Boulevard Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the east at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district and proceeds to the west as a major thoroughfare through Little Armenia and Thai Town, Hollywo ...

and into the subway tunnel below, Pfister set up seven cameras to capture the vehicle's ~ descent. Three hundred cars were used to simulate the traffic jam at the intersection of Hollywood and Highland, which was controlled by the production crew for a week. Three of the 32 custom-built Mini Coopers used during principal photography were fitted with electric motors since combustion engines were not allowed in the subway tunnels, where some scenes were shot. Other Mini Coopers were modified to allow for camera placement on and inside the vehicles. The director remarked that "

he Mini Coopers are He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

part of the cast." Gray wanted the film to be as realistic as possible; accordingly, the actors did most of their own stunts, and

computer-generated imagery Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The image ...

was used very sparingly. The

second unit Second unit is a discrete team of filmmakers tasked with filming shots or sequences of a production, separate from the main or "first" unit. The second unit will often shoot simultaneously with the other unit or units, allowing the filming stag ...

, under director Alexander Witt and cinematographer Josh Bleibtreu, filmed

establishing shot An establishing shot in filmmaking and television production sets up, or establishes, the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects. It is generally a long or extreme-long shot at the beginning of ...

s, the Venice canal chase sequence, and the Los Angeles chase sequence over a period of 40 days. Filming on location posed some challenges. The opening heist sequence in Venice, Italy, was strictly monitored by the local authorities, due to the high speeds the boats were driven at. The frigid temperatures at

Passo Fedaia The Passo Fedaia is a mountain pass traversed by a paved road in the Dolomiti Range in Northern Italy. It lies at the northern base of the Marmolada, the highest peak in the region and the Dolomiti. It is known for its beauty, for Lago Fedaia, a ...

in the Italian

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, ...

created problems during production: "The guns would jam, and if you could imagine not being able to walk 40 feet with a bottle of water without it freezing, those are the conditions we had to work in," Gray remarked. Pedestrians had to be allowed to use the sidewalks of

between takes. Also, scenes which took place on freeways and city streets were only filmed on weekends.

Release

Box-office performance

''The Italian Job'' premiered at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. Tribeca was ...

on May 11, 2003, and was theatrically released in the United States on May 30, 2003, along with ''

Finding Nemo ''Finding Nemo'' is a 2003 American computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Andrew Stanton with co-direction by Lee Unkrich, the screenplay was w ...

'' and '' Wrong Turn''. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $19.5 million, ranking at #3. Paramount re-released the film on August 29, and by the time its theatrical release closed in November 2003, the film had grossed $106.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $69.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $176.1 million. It was the highest-grossing film produced by Paramount in 2003.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, ''The Italian Job'' holds an approval rating of 73% based on 183 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Despite some iffy plot elements, ''The Italian Job'' succeeds in delivering an entertaining modern take on the original 1969 heist film, thanks to a charismatic cast."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

calculated an average score of 68 out of 100 based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Stephanie Zacharek, writing for Salon.com, liked the reinvention of the plot and the style and execution of the action sequences, specifically those involving the trio of Mini Coopers, which she wrote were the stars of the film. BBC reviewer Stella Papamichael gave ''The Italian Job'' 4 stars out of 5, and wrote that the "revenge plot adds wallop lacking in the original". ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' reviewer Kevin Thomas praised the opening Venice heist sequence and the characterization of each of the thieves, but felt that the Los Angeles heist sequence was "arguably stretched out a little too long".

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave the film 3 stars out of 4, writing that the film was "two hours of mindless escapism on a relatively skilled professional level". Mick LaSalle of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pap ...

'' concurred, describing ''The Italian Job'' as pure but smart entertainment "plotted and executed with invention and humor". Reviewer James Berardinelli also gave the film 3 stars out of 4, and said that Gray had discovered the right recipe to do a heist movie: "keep things moving, develop a nice rapport between the leads, toss in the occasional surprise, and top with a sprinkling of panache". '' Variety''s Robert Koehler compared ''The Italian Job'' to '' The Score'' (2001), another "finely tuned heist pic" which also featured Edward Norton in a similar role.

David Denby David Denby (born 1943) is an American journalist. He served as film critic for ''The New Yorker'' until December 2014. Early life and education Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B. A. from Columbia University in 1965, and a master' ...

, writing for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

'', praised Norton's performance, as well as those of Seth Green and Mos Def, and the lack of digital effects in the action sequences.

Owen Gleiberman Owen Gleiberman (born February 24, 1959) is an American film critic who has been chief film critic for '' Variety'' magazine since May 2016, a title he shares with . Previously, Gleiberman wrote for ''Entertainment Weekly'' from 1990 until 2014 ...

of ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cult ...

'' gave the film a B− grade, comparing it positively to the 2000 remake of ''Gone in 60 Seconds'', as well as the 2001 remake of ''Ocean's Eleven''. ''

New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Ta ...

'' reviewer Jack Mathews gave ''The Italian Job'' 2.5 stars out of 4, writing that the action sequences and plot twists were a "vast improvement" from the original, and that the Los Angeles heist sequence was "clever and preposterous". Mike Clark of ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virg ...

'' also questioned the probability of the Los Angeles heist sequence and wrote that the film was "a lazy and in-name-only remake", giving it 2 stars out of 4.

Peter Travers Peter Joseph Travers (born ) is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for ''People'' and ''Rolling Stone''. Travers also hosts the film interview prog ...

, writing for ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its co ...

'', gave ''The Italian Job'' 1 star out of 4, describing the film as "a tricked-out remake of a heist flick that was already flat and formulaic in 1969". Travers enjoyed the comic relief in Green's and Def's characters, and added that Norton's was " e most perversely magnetic performance" outside of the Mini Coopers, but felt that there was a lack of logic in the film.

Home media

''The Italian Job'' was released on DVD by

Paramount Home Entertainment Paramount Home Entertainment (formerly Paramount Home Media Distribution, and originally Paramount Home Video) is the home video distribution arm of Paramount Pictures, a division of Paramount Global. The division oversees PPC's home entertainme ...

October 7, 2003, and includes five bonus features on different aspects of the film's production, in addition to six deleted scenes. It was released on

HD DVD HD DVD (short for High Definition Digital Versatile Disc) is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and playback of high-definition video. Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to ...

August 8, 2006 and on Blu-ray Disc October 24, 2006.

Accolades

F. Gary Gray won a Film Life Movie Award for Best Director at the 2004 American Black Film Festival. Clay Cullen, Michael Caines, Jean Paul Ruggiero and Mike Massa won an award for Best Specialty Stunt at the 2004 Taurus World Stunt Awards for the boat chase through the canals of Venice. ''The Italian Job'' was nominated for the 2003 Saturn Award for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film, but lost to '' Kill Bill.'' In April 2009, IGN named the film's Los Angeles chase sequence one of the top 10 car chases of the 21st Century.

Analysis

Criminologist Nicole Rafter saw ''The Italian Job'' as part of a revival of the heist film around the start of the 21st century, along with '' The Thomas Crown Affair'' (1999) and '' Ocean's Eleven'' (2001), both of which were also remakes of 1960s heist films. In describing his theory of a "team film"

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other ...

, film scholar Dr. Jeremy Strong writes that ''The Italian Job'' could be categorized as such, along with ''

The Magnificent Seven ''The Magnificent Seven'' is a 1960 American Western film directed by John Sturges. The screenplay by William Roberts is a remake – in an Old West–style – of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 Japanese film '' Seven Samurai'' (itself initially ...

'' (1960), '' The Great Escape'' (1963), '' The Dirty Dozen'' (1967), and more recently '' The Usual Suspects'' (1995) and '' Mission: Impossible'' (1996). He states that

a team film involves a group working towards a particular objective. However, goal-orientation is a widely shared plot attribute of many texts and genres and it is also the case that the overwhelming majority of films involve a plurality of interacting characters. An element that distinguishes the team film then is that a heightened significance is afforded to the group as the means by which a given objective is attempted. ..From film to film there is variation in the extent to which particular central characters may determine events and take up screen time but team films are recognizable by their insistence upon the relationship between group and goal.

Strong additionally makes a direct comparison between ''The Italian Job'' and ''Mission: Impossible'', citing the plot device of "a first task that elucidates the roles and skills of team members but which is sabotaged by betrayal, necessitating a re-constitution of the team." The use of BMW's then-new line of retro-styled Minis in the film was mentioned by critics and business analysts alike as a prime example of modern

product placement Product placement, also known as embedded marketing, is a marketing technique where references to specific brands or products are incorporated into another work, such as a film or television program, with specific promotional intent. Much of th ...

, or more specifically "brand integration". Film critic Joe Morgenstern called ''The Italian Job'' "the best car commercial ever". Zacharek and Mathews both noted the cars' prominence in their reviews of the film, also writing that their presence served as a connection to the 1969 film upon which it was based. ''

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York Cit ...

'' reported in April 2004 that sales of the Mini in 2003—the year in which ''The Italian Job'' was theatrically released—had increased 22 percent over the previous year.

Possible sequel

A sequel to ''The Italian Job'', tentatively titled ''The Brazilian Job'', was in development by the summer of 2004, but has since faced multiple delays. Principal photography was initially slated to begin in March 2005, with a projected release date in November or December 2005. However, the script was never finalized, and the release date was pushed back to sometime in 2006, and later summer 2007. Writer David Twohy approached

with an original screenplay entitled ''The Wrecking Crew'', and though the studio reportedly liked the idea, they thought it would work better as a sequel to ''The Italian Job''. Gray was slated to return as director, as well as most, if not all, of the original cast. At least two drafts of the script had been written by August 2007, but the project had not been greenlit. In March 2008, in an interview, Jason Statham said that "somebody should just erase it from

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, p ...

.... and put it back on there when it's fully due and ready. ..It's one of those things that's just sitting around." Producer Donald De Line revealed in June that a script for ''The Brazilian Job'' had been developed and budgeted, but "a lot of things were happening with various management changes and it got tabled." Describing its story, he said it "starts in Brazil, the set up is in Rio and the picture moves to Belgium where there’s something involving diamonds." However, Green stated that September that the sequel was unlikely in the near future. On March 9, 2009, De Line said that " ehave a version at Paramount that we're talking very serious about", additionally mentioning that the cast was interested in the project. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade had been working on a draft of the sequel that year. The '' Daily Record'' reported in September that Theron was signed up for the film. That October, Gray said that he enjoyed making ''The Italian Job'' and hoped that he would still be interested in directing the sequel if the script became finalized and mentioned that it would be dependent upon scheduling. In January 2010, Twohy was quoted in an interview as saying "''The Brazilian Job'' probably isn't happening. I wrote it years ago, and they just keep rolling it over on IMDb. Paramount—what can I say?" When asked about the sequel that June, Green said "''The Brazilian Job'' doesn't exist actually" and called it a "wonderful myth of IMDb." However, the next month,

said that sequel production was "active" again.

References

External links

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Italian Job, The (2003) 2003 films 2000s heist films American heist films American remakes of British films Films about automobiles American films about revenge 2003 action thriller films Films directed by F. Gary Gray Films set in the Alps Films set in California Films set in Los Angeles Films set in Venice Films set in Philadelphia Films set in Spain Films shot in Los Angeles Films shot in Venice Paramount Pictures films Films scored by John Powell Films produced by Donald De Line 2000s English-language films 2000s American films