Now if Statham can make "The Transporter Job," things will be perfect: "The Bank Job"

Check out the guy's IMDb page, and you'll see I'm not joking. It's a miracle he can fit in any movies without one of those two words in the title.

Unlike "The Transporter" and like "The Italian Job" -- to which this movie is NOT related -- "The Bank Job" actually got decent reviews and turned out to be a good flick. Our story -- which is true, apparently -- has Jason Statham as Terry Leather, a small-time con trying to make a living in the early 1970s London selling cars when he gets a proposition from a beautiful woman. Yeah, nothing could go wrong there.

The woman (Saffron Burrows), an old friend of our hero, has a foolproof plan to rob a bank's safety deposit boxes. What she doesn't tell her buddy is that she needs to get something out of one of those boxes to get herself out of a jam with government agents. And that something is what's keeping a British black militant from being arrested and silenced. And it's not like the other boxes hold just family heirlooms, either. So when the bank job goes down, a lot of people get irate, and Statham's gang find themselves in a mell of a hess.

No other familiar names in the mostly British cast, but the movie was directed by Roger Donaldson, whose portfolio is rather diverse. Consider this sampling of movies from newest to oldest: "The World's Fastest Indian," "Species," "Cocktail" and "No Way Out," to name just a few. You know, nobody will confuse this guy with Scorsese, but when people read his obituary, a lot of them will say, "Hey, I've seen some of those!"

Anyway, Donaldson does a perfectly fine job of laying out the story and building the tension. You'd think the big question would be whether they pull off the caper or not. You'd think wrong, and it's fun to watch Statham not get played totally for a sucker, even though he and his mates are clearly in over their heads.

There's also some fun dialogue here and there, but the proceedings generaly are more serious than "Ocean's Eleven"-like. I mean, people die, and not pleasantly. All in all, a solid little thriller, and better than Statham's usual fare. Well, maybe I shouldn't say that until I've seen "Cellular" and "Crank."