Daylight Robbery (2008)

It's a curious film because for some reason the tension never really takes off. One moment some customers are going about their routine, mundane business 'good morning sir, would you like that in tens or twentys?', 'tens please', 'certainly sir'. The next moment a mini-van smashes down the doors of the bank and masked men with guns shout at everyone to 'get the f*&@ down!'. And still the tension remains flat as a pancake. The opportunities for conflict, and thus tension, abounds. The stakes are high: the lives of the hostages, the reputation of the police and the liberty of the robbers. You would expect all the parties concerned to be tense, very tense. Surprising then everyone seems remarkably laid back about the whole thing. The hostages do little more than huddle together in a corner with bags over their head, maybe the extras insisted on that. The police are passive rather than pro-active they observe wondering what will happen rather than figure out what to do next. Operationally little of the story stands up. Why the British Transport Police would provide the incident control van and not the Metropolitan Police beats me. Can you really ram-raid a bank? Going into more detail means writing spoilers but I'm not into those. The planning of the job and its execution is so flawed that on a few occasions you wonder if the makers were actually trying to be funny. If they were, they failed. Badly. This looks nothing like a group of slick professionals carrying a carefully planned robbery. Instead, it looks like a group of lads down the pub who were bored and decided to go rob a bank for a bit of a laugh. Except there are no laughs. The acting is pretty flat, but what can you do with a script like this? The story lacks complexity so not much happens, it just plods on adding to the boredom. There is a hard deadline, albeit a ridiculous one, to meet, but the film gives no sense of it looming. The chief flaw is the interplay between the robbers. It lies in the no-man's land between a ragtag group on the verge of imploding and a top-notch team of solid professionals. Either option would be good but neither was selected. How they boring way they bounce off each other is mostly down to the flat dialogue. They're all good pals without a decent plan. Daylight Robbery does has its moments, but they are few and far between.

OK - firstly, why are all the 10* reviews from people with only one review? Secondly, to equate this to the Italian Job (Even the new version!) is a bloody insult.It is just a basic stick-up job with lots of shouting and screams at the beginning, some ludicrous device about how to get money out of a City of London bank (Sure banks have with some 70 million have no motion detectors...) in the middle, and an OK third part where it all goes wrong.It is just a mess, too chaotic; no or very little humour or charm, and after the first half-hour I had completely lost interest.It is seems from the ground up a Let's Make A Lads Film - even down to the obligatory brunette as hostage - and I just ended up feeling that the writers sat around a table and said "Well lads, what would guys like in this?" "Right, football (There isn't any), hardnuts, big haul of cash, mockney accents, and hard attitudes, stupid cops etc;" and originality be damned.If this is the best crime movie (It's not a heist movie - it's way too blatant to even get near that category) since the Italian Job - then we're all in the deepest poo...NOT recommended Watch it when it comes on Sky, which it will forever...

A most enjoyable film, with lots of action, moments of suspense interspersed with dry humour.Captivating stunts, great sound track and fast paced editing complete the effects.As the plot develops, the tension mounts and during the initial stages of the robbery, my pulse was really racing.The characters are believable and some actually likable, even generating sympathy as the robbery begins to go wrong.Overall, an excellent film that is highly recommended! Congratulations to Paris Leonti for squeezing so much entertainment from a low budget.

A really great gritty movie with some great performances particularly from Vas Blackwood and Shaun Williamson.Top action-filled plot which has you clinging onto your seat at times! Mostly centred around the City of London so great if you know this area well. The script is tight yet immediately manages to make you familiar with each of the key characters. There's a great combination of action and comedy from the start with some pretty audacious stunts to boot.All in all a great low budget movie which manages to make you laugh and certainly kept me entertained throughout. I could definitely watch this again!