Italian Job

Theron feels surprisingly out of her element as a safecracker who learned from the best. As a legitimate businesswoman who's used her skills to help police, she takes to the "gang" awfully fast. And once with them, she doesn't even balk at the crazy evasive driving. In truth, all the actors said that Theron was the best driver among them, but in this role and with these guys surrounding her, she's not nearly as comfortable asserting her character as she is in other films.

All that said, "The Italian Job" is still a fun popcorn movie that I enjoyed from start to finish. You could see the ending coming, but hey, it was still worth seeing old Steve get his come-uppance.

Video:
"The Italian Job" looks great in 1080p High Definition (2.35:1 aspect ratio), with nice black levels and decent color saturation making the picture pleasing on the eyes. The level of detail is fantastic, even in dark corners in the underwater scenes. No complaints here.

Audio:
Same with the audio, which is robust and booming. The jazzy musical backdrop is so important to modern caper flicks, and so the sound carries even greater weight than it does in other films. Here, I'm happy to report, the sound is bright and slightly brassy, with Dolby Digital English 5.1 DTS the preferred option (English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 are the others), with subtitles in English, French, Spanish, and English SDH for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Again, no complaints.

Extras:
If you're looking for commentaries, there are none to be found. The focus is on driving in the movie, so predictably the focus on the bonus features would be on the same. There's "Pedal to the Metal: The Making of 'The Italian Job'," "The Mighty Minis of 'The Italian Job'," "'The Italian Job' Driving School," and "High Octane: Stunts from 'The Italian Job'," along with several deleted scenes, an HD theatrical trailer, and a brief making-of feature. All of them will appeal to fans of stunt driving, but there's not the usual breadth of behind-the-scenes filmmaking we're accustomed to seeing.

Bottom Line:
It's formulaic, but this remake of "The Italian Job" actually has more style and crisper pacing throughout than the 1969 Michael Caine original, which was set in Turin, not Venice. As pale as these characters are compared to Sutherland, Caine had an even blander bunch to work with. And when you look at this one in the rear-view mirror, the revenge and recovery plot wasn't a bad choice at all. It's just too bad that Steve couldn't have settled somewhere more exotic than L.A.

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