How can you not love this one? A group of crafty cockneys and Benny Hill busting into Turin, pinching a load gold from under the Mafias nose before loading up some classic minis with the bars, pelting it away through the tunnels and getting pissed up on the bus ride home. This thing pretty much writes itself. If the Le Cercle Rouge makes stealing look understated and just another part of your everyday character similar to kindness or hunger, then The Italian Job makes it look fun. The fact that members of the gang are called Camp Freddie and Dominic, the pigeon Italian, Benny Hill's fascination with ladies of the larger variety and a truly historic car chase that zigzags through the back streets, sewers and something that I'm told is called a weir. It's all seems like harmless fun if you forget that the Mafia wants too hang them from meat hooks in the city centre. Classic cars, Matt Munroe, something about doors and the greasiest Mafia boss ever caught on camera who's the absolute spit of Silvio Berlusconi. The Italian Job just reeks of sixties cool. And Noël Coward is just a straight up don to boot. Probably the most iconic British heist movie ever made with an impeccable soundtrack and a closing line that everyone who was ever a child in England will be able to reel off to you in a faux cockney twang.
