The Bank

Rating:
Summary: Comment on Lleu Christopher's review
Review: "Australian stereotype of Americans" - I think this is not the subject in the movie. I think the movie shows accurate stereotype of people who run big American or international (not only American) corporates. Also people who are connected to IMF or World Bank. They are greedy, merciless, cynical and vulgar. The have no problem to cheat and ruin other hard working people. They have no problem to ruin other weak countries. These are people like former Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and Arthur Andersen executives.

Rating:
Summary: Financial Thriller
Review: "The Bank" is a tight excellently executed Australian film. David Wenham stars as Jim Doyle, a math wizard that's come up with BTSE, an experimental banking program. Wenham has caught audiences' eye as the transvestite playwright in "Moulin Rouge" and as "Faramir" in the two final "Lord of the Rings" films. Here he absorbs into the role as a brainy math guy whose ultimate tale of revenge has a long burning fuse that pops at the film's stunning climax. The romantic angle comes as he falls for Michelle played by newcomer Sibylla Budd.

Anthony LaPaglia from TV's "Without A Trace" achieves great intensity as the buy & sell businessman Simon O'Reilly whose heart is money. The film's message of corporate responsibility is driven home with the subplot of the bank foreclosing on Wayne & Diane Davis' loan. Blond Steve Rodgers does a nice job as the father bereft by his son's death in a tragic accident as a result of the bank foreclosure. His revenge scene with LaPaglia at the end is brilliantly out of control. Mitchell Butell as the lawyer Stephen does a nice job as the pro bono lawyer who tries to help the couple. This is a first director/screenwriter job for Robert Connelly who keeps the tension flowing, the dialogue pointed & economical, and the visual images of the bank and the lavish home of LaPaglia memorable. This is a small film, but an excellent one, well worth an evening's entertainment. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Comment on Lleu Christopher's review
Review: "Australian stereotype of Americans" - I think this is not the subject in the movie. I think the movie shows accurate stereotype of people who run big American or international (not only American) corporates. Also people who are connected to IMF or World Bank. They are greedy, merciless, cynical and vulgar. The have no problem to cheat and ruin other hard working people. They have no problem to ruin other weak countries. These are people like former Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and Arthur Andersen executives.

Rating:
Summary: Financial Thriller
Review: "The Bank" is a tight excellently executed Australian film. David Wenham stars as Jim Doyle, a math wizard that's come up with BTSE, an experimental banking program. Wenham has caught audiences' eye as the transvestite playwright in "Moulin Rouge" and as "Faramir" in the two final "Lord of the Rings" films. Here he absorbs into the role as a brainy math guy whose ultimate tale of revenge has a long burning fuse that pops at the film's stunning climax. The romantic angle comes as he falls for Michelle played by newcomer Sibylla Budd.

Anthony LaPaglia from TV's "Without A Trace" achieves great intensity as the buy & sell businessman Simon O'Reilly whose heart is money. The film's message of corporate responsibility is driven home with the subplot of the bank foreclosing on Wayne & Diane Davis' loan. Blond Steve Rodgers does a nice job as the father bereft by his son's death in a tragic accident as a result of the bank foreclosure. His revenge scene with LaPaglia at the end is brilliantly out of control. Mitchell Butell as the lawyer Stephen does a nice job as the pro bono lawyer who tries to help the couple. This is a first director/screenwriter job for Robert Connelly who keeps the tension flowing, the dialogue pointed & economical, and the visual images of the bank and the lavish home of LaPaglia memorable. This is a small film, but an excellent one, well worth an evening's entertainment. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Could Have Been A "B" Movie Instead of An "F"
Review: Honestly, this looked liked a really good movie and I watched part of it. The story was intriguing and the acting was good. (I really liked David Wenham's character and the actress who portrayed his girlfriend was quite good). Unfortunately, the filmmakers must have decided that the whole human race loves to hear the "F" word repeatedly, relentlessly, ad infinitum, and so on! The "f"oul language was a major turnoff, otherwise, I would have loved to have watched it, but instead, I just had to turn it off. If there's ever an edited version on television, I would definitely watch it. Otherwise, I'd rather see a *!*#!!good Yosemite Sam cartoon!


Rating:
Summary: Engrossing
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, which has great acting and a good plot with several twists and constant suspense

Rating:
Summary: Morality tale lacks credibility
Review: The Bank is an Australian film about the greed and [dishonesty] of banks. Anthony Lapaglia (who is actually Australian but speaks in this film with an American accent) plays Simon O'Reilly, the head honcho of a major bank who behaves like a cross between Wall Street's Gordon Gekko and Robert Deniro in one of his gangster roles. Indeed, O'Reilly is the only character in the film who routinely swears and is rude to everyone (with the exception of his American wife, whose one line contains a vulgar phrase). Perhaps this is the (occasionally justified, to be fair) Australian stereotype of Americans. I'm afraid, however, that much of what this film knows about Americans and about financial markets was learned only from other movies, especially Wall Street. Simon hires mathematical genius Jim Doyle (played rather blandly by David Wenham) who may have figured out a system to predict the stock market. This system has something to do with fractals and chaos theory; probably not valid, but this is the least of the films weaknesses. There is a parallel plot, awkwardly handled, about a couple whose business was foreclosed by the same bank. After an official hands the couple's young son a summons, the boy drowns in an accident. Although this tragedy is only very indirectly connected to the bank, the film attempts to use this as a device to drive home the heavy-handed point that greed at high levels creates misery for ordinary people. Oddly enough, I found The Bank both confusing and predictable. The connection between the two plot lines is not clear till very late in the film and then they are brought together in a series of scenes that are alternately confusing and simply unbelievable. There is one silly melodramatic scene involving guns. The final twist was supposed to be a surprise, but it was really the only place the script had to go. Without giving anything away, I can say that one of the main characters' actions at the end make much of his earlier behavior completely irrational. The Bank has a few good scenes; there are some interesting discussions involving finance and mathematics. To ask for accuracy on these matters would be asking too much (after all, as far as we know no one has yet found a foolproof way to beat the stock market), but there are too many other things in the film that are not plausible. The ending, for example, is extremely naïve and is more suited for a comedy where realism is not important. At one point in the film someone says "I just hate banks." I'm afraid this was the primary motivation for making this film. This would be fine if they were able to back it up with a credible story, but in my opinion they didn't pull it off here.

Rating:
Summary: A Tightly Wrought Tale of Greed and Revenge
Review: THE BANK is another Australian movie that demonstrates how sophisticated 'foreign' films can be. Robert Connolly directs this tale of corruption with breakneck speed, leaving little time for catching a breath much less understanding the heavily accented dialogue (no English subtitles available on this DVD and many conversations are lost because of the thick Aussie accents by some of the actors). Anthony LaPaglia is the devil incarnate and David Wenham as the new PhD in mathematics who can drive LaPaglia's scheming to disastrous ends. Both are excellent as are the other cast members. The music score by Alan Jones is superb (listen carefully to the boys choral writing) and the graphics are top notch. Not a great movie but a thoroughly entertaining, edge of your seat, wizardlike video game - one in which you as viewer can surmise all the moves.

Rating:
Summary: Usual Suspects meets Wall Street
Review: This is by far the greatest film I have ever seen. It ranks up there with Usual Suspects and House of Games. With The Bank you are essentially watching two movies unfold to an incredible end. Forget Gordan Gekko, Anothoy P. puts him to shame. The computer programmer must have worked for Keiser Sosa. That is how good he is. I just wish the movie would have got a distribution deal. That shows you how shallow Hollywood really is. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: DVD at its worst
Review: This movie is a example of how bad DVD technology is.

It completely hijacks your DVD player, disallowing the ability to fast forward or skip any of the FBI warnings or any of the self-promotional themes.

Any and all contents are unskippable and unforwardable until the movie begins. Pressing the "menu" button doesn't do anything either. The movie stops and the screen is black. There is no menu. The only recourse is to push "play" upon which you are forced to watch the hijacking of your hardware.

The menu (when it *finally* got there) makes absolutely no sense. It's a fractal zooming effect that blinks ferociously and does not slow down enough to let you figure out what to do.

All I could do was push "play" and the movie started.

No freedom to do anything. It locks you out of your own movie.

Just because DVD technology *can* control you doesn't mean it *should* control you.

Truly, DVD at its worst.