The movie is based on an event in British history, a scandal-clad heist known as the “Walkie Talkie Robbery.”
Events Behind The Story
The bank job got it's nickname because the robbers’ ongoing radio communications happened to be picked up by a ham operator, who the alerted police.
It was 1971. The robbery took place over an otherwise quiet weekend. Police, who'd been clued into the happening heist by the ham radio operator, used various ploys to trick the thieves to reveal their whereabouts. Clever as they were, they failed to locate and interrupt the crime. On Monday, when the bank opened its vault, the location of the heist was discovered.
The daring caper was front page news for four days. Then all mention of it abruptly ceased. If we’re to believe the film, that was because the British government stifled coverage--because the secret service had actually engineered the heist to recover some sexually explicit photographs of Princess Margaret, snaps that Michael X, a political activist (and drug dealer), was safeguarding in his deposit box as blackmail to protect himself from prosecution. The robbers, a local gang of petty thieves, targeted Michael X’s deposit box, but also opened others containing lots of stuff their keyholders didn’t want anyone to see--a ledger listing payoffs to bent cops, compromising photos of peers and parliamentarians, and huge fortunes in ill-gained cash and jewels. More than 100 keyholders never claimed their belongings.
No spoilers here, but it’s no surprise the “Walkie Talkie Robbery” precipitated scandals and shakeups stretching from Parliament to Scotland Yard. The real story is fascinating, and the film does an excellent job of presenting caper, causes and consequences in a smart, thoroughly entertaining way.
The film’s so smart, in fact, that it may be taken as fact and may become, at least in the publics’ mind, public record.
Narrative features about true events always raise questions about authenticity, but with most stories records may be investigated by audiences who wish to separate the film’s fiction from fact. The Bank Job, an important story thick with implications and inuendo, is unusual in that most files containing records pertaining to its events are sealed for another 50 years or so. And, by that time, much of The Bank Job’s mythology may have settled in.
Getting Roger Donaldson's Take On Reality
Director Roger Donaldson, who has also helmed documentary films, says he's always concerned about the public's film-guided perceptions about truth and reality.MERIN: The Bank Job is based on a true story about people who remain still shadowy figures. How much of the film's plot is conjecture and how much is true?
DONALDSON: That would be difficult to answer. I mean I’d be lying if I were to say I’m certain anything is true--other than what I read in the newspapers, and even that I would question. I think one of the interesting questions the film raises is “what is a true story?“ Because in the cinema we often say “based on a true story” and “inspired by true events“--but how much of it is actually real?
I think it’s almost impossible to make a film that you could stand there and say with conviction that this is as it was--because writing the story and putting dialogue into people’s mouths makes it different. Everything changes as soon as people say what they didn’t really say, and we don’t know what people say.
Just look at what’s been happening in the British royal family. I mean, if you take Diana’s demise, there’s such controversy, complete 180 degree interpretations about what happened to her. And, with Prince Harry, the fact that they managed to keep his serving in Afghanistan out of the press--that’s a conspiracy. Well, maybe that’s too strong a word--but an agreement among news organizations to not mention it, when it is real.
So, it’s hard to say anything about The Bank Job is a true story, other than that there really was a robbery, and these guys burrowed all the way from the handbag shop, under the Chicken Inn, and came up into the bank vault, and that we’ve done a very accurate portrayal of what these buildings looked like. We used the actual transcripts we got from newspapers of their walkie talkie dialogue during the robbery, and I’ve since heard the actual tapes that were made of their discussions, and our script is accurate to what was said. But, if you take the Michael X character--I mean, he was definitely under British secret service surveillance. He was challenging the status quo and had made a lot of enemies, and was being feted by people like John Lennon and Vanessa Redgrave, and he had international impact. Those elements in our story were supported by documents that weren’t under embargo. It is fact that Michael X’s files are embargoed until 2054--and what they contain is essential to knowing what really happened. The seal is obviously intended to keep the information from the public until everybody’s dead.
