The Bank

The quality of films coming out of Australia always amazes me considering the size of their budgets compared to run-of-the-mill "blockbusters" that Hollywood lavishes millions on.

OK, you have to suspend belief a bit to accept that the caper that is the plot of "The Bank" could actually be pulled off -- or could it? But what the hell, if you watch Hollywood films you suspended your belief a long time ago.

This film is a great example of Less is more. No car chases, nobody gets murdered, hardly any sex. All it has is good writing, good dialog, excellent acting, imaginative filming and special effects and music.

And Anthony Lapaglia is just one of the finest actors around these days. Altogether an enjoyable film.

Greed is at the core of this film. It's incredible how money can corrupt people to the point that it will make them do things that ultimately, they will live to regret.

It was a surprise to see this Australian film that only played a couple of weeks in New York. It's a much better picture than some of the very highly regarded ones that came out just about the same time and are still around, while this one went back to Australia, probably.

The director, Robert Connelly presents us with a story that's very plausible. In it, the greedy banker, played with fine assurance by Anthony LaPaglia, wants to be able to get rich with a scheme that is presented to him by the mysterious David Wenham.

Aside from some of the technical aspects of the financial world, it is very entertaining and very nicely acted by all the actors in it.

i'd been wanting to see this for a long time, ever since i heard wenham was going to be a chief protagonist (one of my favourite actors). his performance in "the boys" is still up in my top 10.

well, "the bank" was everything i expected and more. all the cast gave top-notch performances, and the believability of the subject remained pretty intact the whole way i thought. anthony lapaglia was great (as usual), although i would of preferred it if he played an australian. i just thought it would of added a bit more intensity. the guy who played wayne davis was also good, especially in the stand-off scene.

after being disappointed with a lot of recent australian films ("risk", "mullet"), this was a refreshing delight. i highly reccommend the dvd as well, as robert connolly's commentary is excellent and one of the best i've heard. i look forward to seeing with what he comes up with next

9/10

Go and rent The Bank!

This movie was a great surprise for me. The contrast between LaPaglia and Wenham is very believable. LaPaglia's Simon in his expensive suits and $100 haircut in stark contrast to Wenham's Jim in a leather jacket and unkempt hair. I found myself talking to the characters, from calling Simon (LaPaglia) a dirty bastard, to rolling my eyes at Jim (Wenham) and calling him a sell-out. The Bank really held my "interest" and gave a nice "payoff" in the end with a great twist.

A great movie if you like the David and Goliath-type of movie.

It's an odd thing that in an age when money is God, banks are regarded as the embodiment of evil. Everyone hates banks, and its easy to get an audience on-side to a bit of bank-bashing. We derive guilty pleasure from seeing a bank get its come-uppance; pleasure, because we resent the humiliation they routinely dish out to us as their customers, as well as the charges, foreclosures and cartel-like behaviour they indulge in at our expense. Guilt, because we too subscribe to dreams of wealth and power, it's just that most of us are not ruthless and callous enough to realise them.

This is a simple, straightforward, well produced thriller with a strong script and some good performances from the main players. The story concerns a maths wiz from country Victoria (David Wenham) who with the aid of chaos theory has developed a program to predict financial market trading. The CEO of Centabank (Anthony La Paglia), pressured by his board for more profits, hires him in Melbourne to perfect the program fro the benefit of the bank. Early results are promising, but our wiz seems to have an agenda of his own. Meanwhile, a failed houseboat operator and his wife are seeking redress against the bank in respect of a dodgy foreign currency loan they were conned into.

Part of the plot is similar to `The Farm', with Colin Friels and Greta Scacchi, recently shown on ABC TV (Australia). Here though we have the extra dimension of the financial market thriller, presented in an understandable way. Techicalities are avoided – all you have to do is watch the graph to see what is going on. The supporting characters are not particularly remarkable but the two leads Wenham and La Piaglia are well defined and well balanced. If the script had not been so good La Piaglia could have been a caricature, but he is instead quite believable, though I'm not sure deriding a gunman for his personal weaknesses is always an effective way of persuading him to put the gun down. David Wenham is good at slightly enigmatic characters (Diver Dan in `Seachange', the boss boy in `The Boys' (also directed by Robert Connolly, the director here) and he gives his character here the required amount of mystery. His love interest (Sybilla Budd) who he meets at work, seems a bit incidental – she's not exactly superfluous but isn't really in on the plot until late in the movie, and in the end, well