The Italian Job is a 2003 American heist action film directed by F. Gary Gray with a screenplay by Donna Powers and Wayne Powers. The film stars an ensemble cast consisting of Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Jason Statham, Seth Green, Mos Def, and Donald Sutherland. Inspired by the 1969 British film, but with an original story, the plot follows a motley crew of thieves who plan to steal gold from a former associate who double-crossed them. Despite the shared title, the plot and characters of this film differ from its source material; Gray described the film as "an homage to the original."
Most of the film was shot on location in Venice and Los Angeles, where canals and streets, respectively, were temporarily shut down during principal photography. Distributed by Paramount Pictures, The Italian Job was theatrically released in the United States on May 30, 2003, and grossed over $176 million worldwide. Critical response was generally positive, with publications comparing it favorably to the original film while highlighting the action sequences, performances of the cast and humor. A sequel, The Brazilian Job, was reportedly in development in 2004, but was subsequently cancelled. A video game based on the film was released in 2003.
Plot Professional safecracker John Bridger's team has plans to steal $35 million worth of gold bars from a safe in Venice from Italian gangsters who had stolen it weeks earlier. Professional fixer Charlie Croker, computer expert Lyle or "Napster", wheelman Handsome Rob, explosives expert Left Ear, and inside man Steve comprise the team. Although the heist is successful, Steve double-crosses them as they drive towards Austria with the bullion, with another crew he takes it for himself and kills John. Rob drives the van over the bridge into the water to protect the others, using air tanks from the heist to stay alive. Steve leaves them for dead.
A year later in Philadelphia, Charlie finds Steve, under a new identity, laundering the gold through Ukrainian jeweler Yevhen to finance his lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles. Charlie gathers the team, and also recruits John's daughter Stella, a skilled private safecracker, offering her the chance to avenge her father's death. They stake out Steve's mansion, and Stella, disguised as a cable technician, maps out its interior and determines the location of Steve's safe containing the bullion. Unaware of Stella's identity, Steve asks her out on a date. The plan is to blow the safe while Steve is away on his supposed date, using three heavily modified Mini Coopers to transport the gold out of the mansion. Supplier Skinny Pete gets the explosives and mechanic Wrench modifies the cars.
On Steve's last visit to Yevhen, Yevhen accidentally reveals that he knows about the Venice heist, and Steve shoots him dead to cover his tracks. Mashkov, the leader of a Ukrainian crime family and Yevhen's cousin, traces the gold back to Skinny Pete via Yevhen's ex-employee Vance.
On the night of the planned heist, the crew discovers that Steve's neighbors are having a party, forcing them to abort as the explosives would draw attention. Stella meets Steve anyway, but inadvertently gives away her identity by using her dad's catchphrase. The team arrives to protect her, and Steve taunts them as he says he still has the upper hand.
Aware that Charlie intends to steal it back, Steve decides to move the gold to Mexico City. His plan, which involves transporting the gold via armored car from his L.A. home to a private plane at LAX, is overheard by Napster using a phone tap. Charlie and his gang make a new plan to steal the gold en route to the airport by hijacking the city's traffic control system to force the armored car to a planned spot where they will execute the heist.
On the day, they are surprised when three armored trucks leave Steve's mansion, but Napster determines which one carries the bullion and manipulates the traffic accordingly. As Steve is monitoring the transport by helicopter, they maneuver the truck to the target spot and detonate explosives to drop the part of the road with the truck into the subway tunnel below. Opening the truck, they find the gold in a different safe from the one Stella saw earlier. After initially struggling, Stella cracks it open and they divide the $27 million in gold among the three Minis. They race from the subway to the Los Angeles River and through the city, pursued by Steve's henchmen on motorcycles, with Napster creating a green wave to evade traffic.
Stella, Handsome Rob, and Left Ear head to Union Station, while Charlie lures Steve away in his helicopter. Steve tries to kill him by having his helicopter pilot destroy Charlie's Mini, but the helicopter's tail rotor is damaged, grounding it. Steve carjacks a Ford Bronco to follow Charlie to Union Station, where the cars are loaded onto a train car with the help of Wrench. He tries to bribe Wrench to let him in, but finds Charlie and the others waiting. When Steve pulls a gun, demanding the gold back, Mashkov and his armed men disarm him. Charlie explains that he has offered Mashkov part of the gold and Steve in exchange for helping with security protection (it is implied that Skinny Pete put him in touch). Stella punches Steve in the face as revenge. Mashkov then takes him away, implying he intends to not kill him, but rather torture him for killing Yevhen. The group boards the train as it departs to New Orleans, and celebrate in John's honor.
The team uses their share of the gold for their own desired purposes: Handsome Rob purchases an Aston Martin DB7 Volante, getting pulled over by a beautiful policewoman; Left Ear buys a mansion in Andalusia with a room for his shoe collection; Napster buys a high-end stereo with powerful speakers; and Charlie takes John's advice about finding someone he wants to spend the rest of his life with, and he and Stella travel to Venice together.
Cast Mark Wahlberg as Charlie "Hustle" Croker, the team's leader, master thief and professional fixer. He seeks revenge for the murder of his mentor, John Bridger. Charlize Theron as Stella Bridger, John's daughter and a professional safe-cracker. She uses tools and technology to open safes, in contrast to her father who opened them by feel. She joins the team in order to get revenge on Steve for killing her father. Edward Norton as Steve Frazelli, a thief who turned on Charlie's crew and left them for dead after stealing the gold from them. Donald Sutherland as John Bridger, Stella's father and safe-cracker who is pulled in by Charlie for one more job. Jason Statham as "Handsome" Rob, the team's wheelman and a charming ladies' man. Seth Green as Lyle "Napster", the team's computer expert. He claims he is the real inventor of Napster, insisting that Shawn Fanning stole the idea from him. Fanning appears as himself in a cameo role. Mos Def as Gilligan "Left Ear", the team's demolition and explosives expert. Franky G as Wrench, a mechanic whom Rob contacts to engineer the Minis to carry the gold. He later joins the team for the heist. Boris Lee Krutonog as Yevhen, a jewelry store owner with ties to the Ukrainian mafia. He is a conspiracy theorist who is buying the stolen gold bars from Steve. Aleksander Krupa as Mashkov, a member of the Ukrainian mafia family and Yevhen's cousin. He operates a junkyard as a base as he searches for Yevhen's killer.
Production
Development Neal Purvis and Robert Wade wrote a draft of a remake of the 1969 British crime film The Italian Job which was rejected by Paramount. Screenwriting team Donna and Wayne Powers were subsequently commissioned to write a remake. The duo viewed the original film, which neither had seen before, only once "because [they] wanted to get a sense of what it was about" in regards to its tone. Over the course of two years and through 18 drafts, they developed a screenplay which was described by director F. Gary Gray as "inspired by the original." Gray, Powers and Powers, and executive producer James Dyer identified the most prominent similarities as the trio of Mini Coopers used by the thieves, as well as the titular heist involving the theft of gold bullion. Some sequences of the film were storyboarded and previsualized by Gray before production began.
Casting Gray had been interested in working with Wahlberg since seeing his performance in Boogie Nights (1997). After reading the script for The Italian Job, Gray contacted Wahlberg, who "fell in love with it" after reading it himself. In April 2002, Wahlberg's casting was officially confirmed. He had to drop out a role in S.W.A.T. (2003) in favor of the film. Green was also attracted to the project because of the script. Theron was Gray's first choice for the character of Stella Bridger, and Wahlberg also recommended her for the role. She spent time with a safecracker in preparation for the role. Gray's casting director Sheila Jaffe suggested Statham for the role of getaway driver Handsome Rob, and Gray agreed with her choice. According to co-star Seth Green, Norton took the role of Steve Frazelli under duress, due to a contractual obligation he had to fulfill to Paramount. While all parties said he behaved professionally on the film, Norton was furious about being forced to make the film, and was quoted as saying of the film, "My real fans should give this a miss." Wahlberg, Theron, and Statham attended special driver's training sessions at Willow Springs International Motorsports Park for nearly a month during pre-production.
Filming Gray and cinematographer Wally Pfister worked together to develop a visual style for the film before production began. They viewed car commercials and magazine photographs, as well as chase sequences from The French Connection (1971), Ronin (1998), and The Bourne Identity (2002) as visual references. Pfister wanted "dark textures and undertones and strong contrast;" he collaborated with production designer Charlie Wood on the color palette, and the two would confer with Gray on their ideas. It was Wally Pfister's first experience using the Super 35 format since Paramount preferred that the film not be shot in the anamorphic format, despite Pfister's wishes to do so. However, Gray still wanted a widescreen aspect ratio, just like the original, so they chose to shoot the film in Super 35 for a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Once principal photography began, Gray frequently utilized dollies, as well as Steadicams and a Technocrane, to keep the cameras almost constantly moving.
Most of The Italian Job was shot on location, at sites Pfister scouted over 12 weeks during pre-production, but some scenes were filmed on sets. The Venice building where the film's opening heist sequence takes place, the van from which the thieves survey Steve Frazelli's mansion, a hotel room, and the LACMTA Red Line subway tunnel were sets constructed at Downey Studios in California. For the scene in which an armored truck falls through Hollywood Boulevard and into the subway tunnel below, Pfister set up seven cameras to capture the vehicle's ~ descent. Three hundred cars were used to simulate the traffic jam at the intersection of Hollywood and Highland, which was controlled by the production crew for a week. Three of the 32 custom-built Mini Coopers used during principal photography were fitted with electric motors since combustion engines were not allowed in the subway tunnels, where some scenes were shot. Other Mini Coopers were modified to allow for camera placement on and inside the vehicles. The director remarked that "[the Mini Coopers are] part of the cast."