Daylight Robbery (2008)

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY is another unfocused British gangster/crime thriller set in the increasingly mean streets of London. The narrative involves a group of football fans who coincide a visit to the capital to watch the latest match with an audacious bank robbery that involves drilling into the vault to steal a fortune.Unfortunately this is a low rent and rather unappealing film thanks to the writing of the central characters. They're a bunch of football hooligan types who go around shouting, swearing, and generally being unpleasant to each other the whole time, so the viewer is alienated from the beginning. A film like this needs tension, suspense, cracking dialogue, and yet DAYLIGHT ROBBERY offers very little of those things.Instead we watch as things play out and it seems to go on forever. There are violent scenes and attempts at humour and drama but somehow it all seems to fall flat. There are familiar faces in the cast too but none of the actors put in very good turns; Shaun Williamson's Keystone cop and Paul Nicholls as 'Chubby' are an example of what you're in for here.

An English bank heist flick, Daylight Robbery is a decent hour-and-a-half of entertainment. Its unadorned, bare bones storytelling is a bit bracing and it's script manages to hit you with just enough surprises in genuinely surprising places. The ending is a bit odd, with writer/director Paris Leonti apparently thinking he made his characters much more endearing and three dimensional than he really did, and Leonti hews much closer to reality than the colorful eccentricity common to British crime drama. This is like a streamlined and less complex version of the American bank robbery film Inside Man, something which it seems to acknowledge itself.At the start of the World Cup in Germany, a band of criminals back their van through the front doors of a London bank and proceed to rob it. One of them is seriously injured at the start, but they manage to recover quickly from that and terrorize the bank manager into opening the vault. As the authorities surround the bank, however, it's not clear how they plan to get away with their ill gotten gains. The answer to that is almost shockingly old fashioned and the few additional twists the story throws at you make it clear that Daylight Robbery isn't trying to blow you away by showing you something you've never seen before. This is more like a friendly visit to a place you've been before that reminds you of what you enjoyed about it the first time you were there.As long as you don't come into it with expectations that are too high, I think you'll like this motion picture. The plot is smart, yet still straight forward. The characters have just slightly more personality than they need to service the plot. The direction isn't flashy but it effectively balances danger and comedy while portraying the bank robbers as both hardened criminals and men with some sort of moral code. The bank heist flick is a well worn genre and new entries usually try to do something overly clever or energetic to get noticed. That's not Daylight Robbery. This production isn't trying to break any boundaries, smash any clichés or overwhelm the audience with how hip and snazzy it is.Its modest intentions don't allow this movie to be a "must see", but I certainly recommend it for anyone who wants to have a good time.

Firstly, as others have said, the premise is unconvincing, and this is most certainly NOT an Italian Job.That having been said, the film is an enjoyable British crime film, though not a Guy Ritchie bungling criminals caper at all - these characters are unpleasant, menacing and ruthless. The bungled start of the raid soon takes a dark twist.The actors are a collection of low budget cockneys - Del Synott and Shaun Parkes from Lock Stock (TV show), Vas (Rory Breaker) from Lock Stock (movie) and even Shaun Williamson from Eastenders (and an Extras victim).The scale and shape of the police operation is totally unrealistic, and Williamson does not have the presence to be the cop in charge. It all compares badly to Dog Day Afternoon, Inside Man, and The Bank Job.But never mind, I enjoyed it anyway, and the conclusion of the story, together with the manner in which it arrived, was unexpected (perhaps I was not concentrating).The opening of the final scene seems to be a nod to The Italian Job!

Great! The opposite of what I thought it would be, and all the better for it! The presence of Vas Blackwood and the robbery theme made me think it might be the rumpled spawn of Lock, Stock, but don't let this throw you.Daylight Robbery is a different beast altogether.Instead of convoluted, contrived plot and cheap laughs, Leonti keeps it real and lets us go along for the ride with real, non sensational, believable characters.A brave, distinctive movie about what it's probably really like to rob a bank.