Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

In the opening seconds of Sonny Wortzik’s daring daylight robbery of a Brooklyn bank, it all goes wrong. Sonny – played by Al Pacino, when his legend was unbeatable – can’t even get his rifle out of a flower box correctly. He fumbles. Then one of his two accomplices flees, and then Sonny finds out the truck already picked up the money. Dude is left looking at less than $1,500. This is the start of Sidney Lumet’s classic drama-thriller “Dog Day Afternoon,” a film about a damned lost soul, so desperate to change, for a chance, that he destroys the thin string he hangs by. Based on an incredible true story, “Dog” is Pacino’s acting showcase -- a maladjusted Vietnam vet in a sexual pickle too riotous to explain. Just watch. His Sonny seems closer to real criminals, as we call them, than 99 percent of the flicks out there. (I covered enough crime at newspapers to know.) Lumet’s clockwork precision plays well, the movie seems to spin out in real time, in a throbbing, sweating, raging New York City long gone. John Cazale plays Sonny’s hard-case accomplice, an unhinged guy not afraid to kill or be killed. One of the best films from the 1970s. A+

The Bank Job (2008)

It may have too many subplots and take a while to ramp up, but the 2008 Brit crime heist film "The Bank Job" is balls to the wall riveting. And it, apparently, is all based on true events. How true, I don't know. But, this is a wild ride.

Small time crook and car salesman Terry Leather (Jason Statham) is hooked by a never-happened flame (Saffron Burrows) into robbing a London bank in early 1970s London. He thinks it's about money and jewels, but it's really about photos that could tear England's royal family a hole down under. Mixed in are power-politicking of the day, drugs and whores, a gofy sex scene, lots of other sex scenes, race/class warfare and ego contests with London police and national investigators.

It's a lot, maybe too much, but it's highly suspenseful and laugh-out-loud funny. Leather's team truly is mostly amateur, and the middle-of-the-night robbery is stunning in its ineptitude and genius. But, the characters are never false or over-the-top like those in the crappy "The Ladykillers" remake from a few years back. The fun and shock is watching these goons stuck in over their heads get out, or get killed.

Statham is awesome as Terry. An action film star who hasn't peaked, Statham falls or excels depending on the script he's taken. "In the Name of the King" placed a terrible role in a terrible film on his shoulders. He still walked out OK. He has a '70s Michael Caine feel with the attitude of Russell Crowe or Kurt Russell. Count me in as a Statham fan. He rocks, and this film rocks. B+