Movies based on or inspired by true-life events can be fun to watch, especially when one knows the back story that was the inspiration.

"The Bank Job" is based loosely on one of the biggest bank robberies ever to take place in England. While the city slept, the vaults of Lloyds Bank were emptied back in 1971 when amateur thieves tunneled their way to the deposit boxes of cash and jewelry worth an estimated 300,000 pounds.

The story could have been told much sooner, but a gag order from the U.K. known as a "D" Notice (gagging the media) prohibited the real story from ever being told. Why? A notice of that designation means that some of the evidence included some compromising photos of a royal princess taken on holiday. The government felt that could have posed a national security risk. Basically, it would have been an embarrassment to the royal family.

"The Bank Job" stars Jason Statham. He's the European version of a Bruce Willis. With a wry sense of humor and a laid-back confidence, Statham probably is best known as the getaway driver extraordinaire Handsome Rob from "The Italian Job" (and its sequel, "The Brazilian Job," due out next year), and the "Transporter" movies. In those two franchises alone, he gets the best typecasting ever as the cool driver getting to use fast cars.

Statham plays Terry Leather, a family man with a checkered past and financial woes, who gets coaxed by Martine Love (Saffron Burrows), a beautiful model from the neighborhood, to pull off a bank job considered to be foolproof. Seems that the alarms have a tendency to go off every time a train goes by, so they don't always keep them on. She knows other information about the bank, and you wonder: How does she know so much detail? It all depends on who you sleep with, doesn't it?

Things really get interesting form here, and soon you realize that it becomes rather ironic that the good guys in this whole mess turn out to be the criminals. The loot never was recovered, nobody ever was arrested, and there was plenty of scandal and extortion to go around.

Directed by Aussie Roger Donaldson ("No Way Out," "Species," "Thirteen Days" and "The World's Fastest Indian"), with a script by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, "The Bank Job" was far better than I ever expected it to be. Several reasons include the unexpected booty that the thieves stumble upon that you can't put a monetary amount on, but they soon find out that those involved in what could be a potential scandal will cough up anything to keep the stolen property hushed up.

This movie initially was going to be titled "Baker Street" (hello to all you Sherlock Holmes fans out there), and, even though it's based on speculative fiction, you can't help but wonder what the real story was and how close this version came to paralleling the original 1971 incident.

The characters all are very interesting, including the real bad bloke known as Michael X (Peter De Jersey), who was, in fact, an actual person, and David Suchet, who is great playing a sleazy underworld porn king, Lew Vogel. But it's Statham who really hit pay dirt here, finally getting to stretch his talent in a movie that showcases him at his finest. The action and intrigue is pretty good, too.

- Howie Nave is host/manager of The Improv comedy club inside Harveys and reviews films for seven radio stations throughout Northern California and Nevada, including Sirius Radio. He hosts "Howie's Morning Rush" on Tahoe's KRLT radio, and you can see his film reviews on RSN. For past reviews, blogs and audio clips, visit www.HowieNave.com.