The Italian Job
Short description
The Italian Job follows a crew of thieves led by Charlie Croker, who pull off a gold heist in Venice. Their success falls apart when one of their own turns on them, takes the loot for himself and leaves the others for dead. A year later the survivors track the traitor to Los Angeles, where he has been living off the proceeds. To get the gold back they bring in Stella Bridger, a safecracker, and plan a robbery that depends on controlling the city's traffic lights, creating gridlock across Los Angeles while they make their escape in three Mini Coopers.
F. Gary Gray directed the film, which sits fifth in the directing career listed here, between The Negotiator and A Man Apart. Donna Powers and Wayne Powers wrote the screenplay, and Donald De Line produced. Mark Wahlberg plays Charlie Croker, Edward Norton plays the betrayer Steve, and Charlize Theron plays Stella Bridger. Seth Green, Jason Statham and Yasiin Bey round out the crew, among 44 credited cast members and 233 credited crew.
The film was released in May 2003 and runs 110 minutes. Made for a budget of 60 million dollars, it took in about 176 million dollars worldwide, roughly tripling its cost. On IMDb it holds 7 out of 10 from around 406,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.8 out of 10 from about 6,200 votes. A critics' rating of 6.5 out of 10 from 178 reviews places it close to the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- When Edward Norton’s character turns on the television in his house, the original 1969 film is playing, and Michael Caine’s character can be seen.
- Edward Norton made no secret from the very beginning of filming that he was participating in the project only due to contractual obligations. He had an agreement with the film company “Paramount Pictures” to star in three films, and the first of these was “Primal Fear” (1996) by Gregory Hoblit, where Norton played his debut role. After that, the actor began to refuse all scripts offered to him under the same agreement until the film company persuaded him to work with F. Gary Gray. The actor openly demonstrated his attitude towards the project, constantly arguing with members of the film crew, and when the film was surprisingly successful, and the producers gave small gifts to the actors involved to celebrate, Norton returned his gift with a note that read: “Better give this to someone you like, … or someone who likes you.”
- The subway tunnel was so large that it wouldn't fit into any studio pavilion in Los Angeles. It was built in a huge hangar where the first space “shuttle” was once assembled.
- To film some scenes, a special “MINI Cooper” with duplicated steering was used, so that a stunt driver could control the car while the actor focused on filming the scene. Now this car is shown to tourists as part of a tour of the assembly plant in Cowley in Oxfordshire, England.
- Filming on location was fraught with some difficulties. Representatives of the local authorities closely monitored the filming of the robbery in Venice. They insisted on it themselves due to the high speeds at which the boats raced according to the script, which naturally exceeded the permissible speed limits for movement along the canals. Minus temperatures in the Italian Alps created certain problems with the weapons, which refused to fire, and the water in the bottles froze instantly. During breaks between takes during filming on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, passages for pedestrians had to be opened on the sidewalks, and scenes on the highway and city streets could only be filmed on weekends.
- The scene featuring the traffic jam at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue used 300 cars. Filming lasted a week.
- At the moment the truck with the safe falls into the subway, a fleeing crowd is shown, in which a frightened Spider-Man can be spotted.
- While the original film “The Italian Job” (1969) was set in Europe, this remake begins in Venice and continues in Los Angeles.
- Jason Statham recounted in an interview that, in addition to the extreme driving courses all the actors in the film took, he also spent two days training with Damon Hill, a hereditary English racing driver and the 1996 Formula One World Champion. All the actors unanimously agreed that Charlize Theron was the best driver among them.
- All the actors in the lead roles had to complete extreme driving courses, while Yasin Bey’s situation was even more challenging – he couldn’t drive at all, so he had to learn from scratch.
- When screenwriters Donna and Wayne Powers decided to work on the script for a remake of Peter Collinson’s “The Italian Job” (1969), they hadn’t seen the original, and only watched it once after that. This was intentional – the Powers didn’t want to copy the original, they wanted to create a script for their own film, merely inspired by Collinson’s thriller.
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