ROGER Donaldson, the director behind such critically acclaimed movies as No Way Out, Thirteen Days and The World’s Fastest Indian looks set to come up trumps with his latest movie caper, The Bank Job.

Inspired by an extraordinary true event – a daring, unsolved robbery, which took place more than 35 years ago in London – The Bank Job is a highly-charged thriller starring Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows and James Faulkner.

The film interweaves a heady combination of intrigue, scandal and danger and has been described by its producers as “an amazing untold story of murder, sex and corruption”.

In September 1971, thieves tunnelled into the vault of a bank in London’s Baker Street and looted safe deposit boxes of cash and jewellery worth millions and millions of pounds.

None of it was recovered. Nobody was ever arrested. And the robbery made headlines for a few days and then disappeared – the result of a UK Government ‘D’ Notice, gagging the press.

The film reveals what was hidden in those boxes and the story involves murder, corruption and a sex scandal with links to the Royal Family.

As part of its research, the production team reportedly looked at photos of the crime scene and studied news footage about the robbery itself.

But it’s the royal angle that’s sure to lend it the most controversy, given that it hints at a major sex scandal and government cover-up without going quite so far as to name the person at the centre of it (we won’t ruin the fun here!).

The criminal element, meanwhile, encompasses a notorious black activist known as Michael X (or Michael Abdul Malick), who allegedly used photos of the royal scandal to keep him free from prosecution.

The government, on its part, conspired to organise the bank robbery with the intention of recovering the incriminating evidence that was stored in the bank’s safety deposit boxes.

The film that ensues is a fast-paced and actually quite riveting account of what might have taken place, that promises to lift the lid and expose one of the most extraordinary British scandals for some time.

It’s well worth keeping an eye on when it opens in UK cinemas on February 28, 2008. b>Watch the trailer

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