patrick3201

I was a little startled by some of the reviews on here doing this film down, implying it's some kind of two-bit farce with little to recommend it except a few big names.

Startled because, as far as my own opinion goes, The Italian Job is the best British comedy I've ever seen, and certainly in my top 10 of all films. I think some of its critics either just don't get it, or aren't familiar with the whole 'muddling through' kind of humour that was a staple of the post-war UK. The famous Ealing comedies of the 40s and 50s were precursors (albeit rather more prim ones) to The Italian Job, and if you don't like any of them either then you're definitely missing something here too.

I don't know if I want to write a huge complex essay preaching about how wonderful The Italian Job is, but I hope that some of these plus-points will help get across why this film was re-released nationwide in the cinema for its 30th anniversary and had normally timid audiences spontaneously joining in with the dialogue:

• The whole thing feels really cool and stylish. The opening Matt Monro song is wonderfully mellow, Michael Caine was a young and well-dressed guy in 1969 and the spectacular Italian scenery together with London's 'swinging' status and Noel Coward's urbane charm all make for a convincing package.

• It's really really funny! Once you get into it, almost every scene is memorable and the quality holds up right through to the end. There is a reason why all Michael Caine impersonations (except for 'My name is Harry Palmer') are lines from The Italian Job, and that's because they're so witty and so numerous and delivered by Caine so well. Benny Hill is on top form, and as someone who hates his tv series I was pleasantly surprised by what must be the greatest performance of his career. Even Noel Coward gets some of his wittiest-ever screen dialogue, and considering his distinguished career that's really saying something.

• It's unique. There's almost nothing out there with a similar balance of adventure and humour, which makes a great combination as you can take the plot as seriously as you want. Sure you'll find car chases elsewhere, sure you'll find bungling thieves and dry remarks, but this kind of balance is very rare. I can only think of perhaps Raiders Of The Lost Ark as being another film so happy with its semi-serious status.

• It's British, or perhaps English. Now, I'm not really patriotic at all but it's always nice to see something that feels true to the people who made it. It's very depressing to see British film makers trying to half-heartedly copy Hollywood, and it's also very depressing to see Hollywood feeling somehow scared of being American when it does epics like Gladiator (all performed for some reason in posh English accents). The Italian Job revels in the declining state of the UK instead of ignoring it, and makes a point of showing how ill-prepared and incompetent the crooks are. There's also a wonderful torch-passing moment where former English icon Noel Coward squares up to future English icon Michael Caine in the prison toilet, one face distinguished but elderly and the other full of sparkle and ambition for the future. If you're unaware of who these people are, the scene probably won't mean much to you and that might hold true for a lot of other things in The Italian Job.

• It's a non-macho action film. From 'camp' Freddie to Noel 'everybody in the world is bent' Coward, from the gormless crooks with migraine to a cigar-eating Benny Hill, right down to the diminutive Minis themselves, this isn't a film that Schwarzenegger or Stallone would be seen anywhere near. The bullets are non-existent, the violence isn't excessive and the car chase isn't so much an adrenaline rush as a wonderful cinematic spectacle. One of the filmed scenes edited out of the final cut had the Minis and police cars stumbling into an ice rink where they accidentally perform pirouettes round each other to ballet music (the writer felt this looked *too* silly and ordered it cut).

As others have pointed out, there's also just a certain something that makes The Italian Job punch far above its theoretical weight. For some inexplicable reason, in a way very much like Star Wars in America, The Italian Job has entered the British public's consciousness to such an extent that people still quote it and recognise quotations from it (Eddie Izzard does an entire routine based around the film), 'self-preservation society' is sung in football grounds by thousands of fans, remixes of the theme and samples from the film regularly appear on the radio, Italian Job pinball machines are a not uncommon sight, and there's even been a hit Playstation game (rather a good one too).

If anyone is wondering why there's so much trepidation in the UK over the American remake, imagine if a film company announced they were going to remake the original Star Wars film. It'd be pointless because people don't watch Star Wars for its clever plot or basic concepts. Just like The Italian Job, the charm of Star Wars lies entirely in the finished product, the final combination of actors, music, editing and visuals. Remaking it from scratch would be like completely changing the recipe for Coca-Cola, and no one would be that stupid, would they? Well, okay, they were, but look what happened...

Yes, I can see this film is never going to pack cinemas or win awards, but it's not trite and is quite well acted. This isn't a film to watch because you want a story, or escape, or a smile. It won't make you feel better about life.

But if you're feeling morose, and quiet, and aren't feeling particularly optimistic about how things will turn out, you might find some kind of solace in the aimless wandering of Ford and Thomas' characters. When something very bad happens to you, you do feel confused and battered, and the lead characters in Random Hearts reflect this well.

The criminal sub-plot does feel a bit redundant, like it's strayed in from another film. Perhaps it was some kind of attempt to keep a fig leaf of commerciality on what is basically a couple of hours of numb meditation, although I haven't read the original novel so I don't know if it had some greater significance that I missed.

Some of the other reviews on here quite rightly call Random Hearts noir and cathartic, the film equivalent not so much of watching paint dry as watching a river flow.