The Bank (2001)

Banks - love them ot hate them?

Do not watch this movie with anyone who is finance savvy. They will be bored since they can tell that the entire story plot is fake. Some snippets of the finance modelling and chaos theory are being thrown around and it just does not stand as strong as a movie premise for someone who does economics for living, vs. someone who is not familiar with it. Half financial thriller, half morality tale - this is definitely an interesting tale of greed, loss, revenge and healing. September 28, 2007

A thriller without violence

This refreshing movie is a thriller with no physical violence. The hero doesn't try to win the day by punching or shooting. Instead, he uses his intelligence and creativity. One of the main ideas of the film is that it might be possible to predict the stock market using some mathematical formula. Certainly, there is ongoing research into that area. Various formulas have been tried in the last few years with well publicized results. There is a little mathematical mumbo jumbo in the film which probably adds to the production design, but isn't necessary to understand the film. There is a little bit of Hitchcock in the film including some illogic in the script, but it's enjoyable all the same. Anthony La Paglia does some great acting as the antagonist for whom creating additional profit for a corporation is the only goal. In case you think his portrayal is over the top, rent Enron: The Smartest Men in the Room, a chilling documentary about actions in the Board Room.

Many features of the plot of this film were in The Spanish Prisoner which is also a thriller without violence. April 11, 2007

¨*:·.·:*¨¨*:·..·:*·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨BLOODY BRILLIANT¨*:·. ·:*¨¨*:·..·:*·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨

Thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end. Has it all....suspense, horror, drama, comedy (a tad), excitement...PLUS I absolutely LOVE what the character Doyle (Wenhem) is all about and I'm certain you will too as long as you're not a big wig running a bank somewhere out there in the disgustingly, greedy world that banks exist in. I love A. La Paglia and would also love to have babies with him, but I hated him in this movie simply for the role he played. This is a unique movie and yes it is Australian ( I can't believe an Amazon reviewer in the USA bitched about it simply b/c they couldn't understand the "heavy australian accent" and whinged that it didn't have subtitles. Unless you are a complete and utter pea brain there is no possible way you cannot understand the "Australian language". 5 stars for brilliance, excellence, uniqueness, etc....etc... July 10, 2006

Solid thriller...but--

This has all the makings of a great noir thriller. Plot incorporates characters driven by revenge and greed--very good. Acting--very good. Intelligence level--very good. Well, the intelligence level is very good UNTIL...

...the very last scene, right before the credits roll. Without giving anything away, if the climactic event has occurred, the sight of somebody being surprised by their current holdings is completely ludicrous. This very last scene totally ruined the entire film.

This has to do with banking, MEGA-banking, and corporate greed, and what corporate greed will do. One of the twists is that it's set in Australia, which makes it kind of interesting and that everybody therefore has an Australian accent except for the bank CEO played by Anthony LaPaglia who, although Australian, sounds better with an American accent! (which in fact is what he uses in the film). So one has to assume that the bank hired an American CEO. Not a stretch.

The guy is ultra slimy--full of greed and cruelty. We might be tempted to say this is a cliche, if it were not for the fact that this is completely true. (Examples include Enron, Martha Stewart, and the pharmaceutical companies of America who, at the time of this writing, September 2005, are being sued in the state of California by none other than the Attorney General of California, Charles Lockyer).

Enter Jim Doyle, a mathematical genius who promises Mr. CEO billions of dollars based on Doyle's devising of a complex formula predicting market behavior. CEO hooked, Doyle recruited, formula tested.

So far, so good. Then things get ugly. Local businessman beginning to go under, served a summons to appear in court for foreclosure by same bank, young son drowns, complications.

Is Jim Doyle who he says he is? How will his new girlfriend fit into the picture?

The plot moves the film along like it should--very good pacing. The events escalate and we have some real suspense. Still so far, so good. Things culminate. Still very good.

Then we get the last scene which blows it all to hell. Too bad.

Without the very last scene, I would easily have given this four stars. September 1, 2005

DVD at its worst

This movie is a example of how bad DVD technology is.

It completely hijacks your DVD player, disallowing the ability to fast forward or skip any of the FBI warnings or any of the self-promotional themes.

Any and all contents are unskippable and unforwardable until the movie begins. Pressing the "menu" button doesn't do anything either. The movie stops and the screen is black. There is no menu. The only recourse is to push "play" upon which you are forced to watch the hijacking of your hardware.

The menu (when it *finally* got there) makes absolutely no sense. It's a fractal zooming effect that blinks ferociously and does not slow down enough to let you figure out what to do.

All I could do was push "play" and the movie started.

No freedom to do anything. It locks you out of your own movie.

Just because DVD technology *can* control you doesn't mean it *should* control you.

Truly, DVD at its worst. July 31, 2004

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