User Reviews

The quality of films coming out of Australia always amazes me considering the size of their budgets compared to run-of-the-mill "blockbusters" that Hollywood lavishes millions on.

OK, you have to suspend belief a bit to accept that the caper that is the plot of "The Bank" could actually be pulled off -- or could it? But what the hell, if you watch Hollywood films you suspended your belief a long time ago.

This film is a great example of Less is more. No car chases, nobody gets murdered, hardly any sex. All it has is good writing, good dialog, excellent acting, imaginative filming and special effects and music.

And Anthony Lapaglia is just one of the finest actors around these days. Altogether an enjoyable film.

This is an Australian suspense thriller about a mathematician, Jim Doyle, who develops a new theory based on chaos analysis that will enable a user to predict just about anything. A senior banking executive, Simon O'Reilly, gets a hold of the news and hires Jim to work for them, to develop a system that will predict financial markets.

Jim is altruistic - he wants to predict market collapses so that regular people can react in time. Simon sees a way to get rich. Simon is also one of those Gordan Gecko types who sees himself as part of the new feudal lords of capitalism, a member of the elite whose duty he sees as crushing the opposition.

This is a pretty clever film and I want to be careful not to give away the ending. You can sort of see it coming, but the actor playing Jim, David Wenham, is so under control that he doesn't give away a thing. You might recognize Wenham from his role as Faramir, Boromir's brother in the second installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. His acting makes this film succeed.

Anthony LaPaglia plays the ruthless banker, Simon, and he manages to make himself hateful for the audience. Sibylla Budd also plays the love interest of Jim very well (she has a deliciously sly smile).

Short on elaborate production values, but the story and the acting make this film exciting and one I'd recommend.

Go and rent The Bank!

This movie was a great surprise for me. The contrast between LaPaglia and Wenham is very believable. LaPaglia's Simon in his expensive suits and $100 haircut in stark contrast to Wenham's Jim in a leather jacket and unkempt hair. I found myself talking to the characters, from calling Simon (LaPaglia) a dirty bastard, to rolling my eyes at Jim (Wenham) and calling him a sell-out. The Bank really held my "interest" and gave a nice "payoff" in the end with a great twist.

A great movie if you like the David and Goliath-type of movie.

Another film about corporate power and greed, "The Bank" puts a slightly different spin on the subject. Set in Melbourne, a young Ph.D. mathematician named Jim Doyle (David Wenham) uses fractal theory, similar to chaos theory, to predict changes in stock markets. A ruthless, unethical CEO named Simon O'Reilly (Anthony LaPaglia) hires Doyle to employ his equations to benefit Simon's bank which, in a separate development, tries to swindle a working class couple out of their belongings. "The Bank", obviously, does not portray financial institutions favorably.

The tone here is cold and technical, with dialogue that includes lots of techno-babble. And there are some potent lines, like when Simon spews out his politics to Jim's girlfriend. "We (the banks) can react against any government until they do exactly what it is we want them to do ... We have now entered the age of corporate feudalism ..."; the girlfriend responds angrily: "What do you call yourselves, bastards without borders?"

Indeed, the story takes Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" a step further. Whereas Gordon Gekko's mantra was personal greed, Simon's goal is nothing less than global domination, a world run by ruthless banking executives.

The film's plot is not altogether clear when first viewed, as a result of flashbacks. And some plot points are left unexplained, perhaps intentionally. Also, I must say that the story, in its totality, is somewhat implausible. But there's plenty of tension as we approach the climax, partly as a result of the film's splendid graphics.

And those graphics, in the form of line schematics, are the portal from which we descend into fractal theory, a veritable black hole for some of the characters. A couple of subtle references to Hal9000 solidify a black box future, amplified by color cinematography that is dark and menacing.

We've seen this overall concept before, in other films. It's hardly original. And the characters are not really sympathetic. Still, "The Bank" is technically well made. For most viewers, Simon's motivations are chilling. They remind us of what can happen when big, powerful institutions are given unlimited control.

I liked the movie, but was terribly disappointed in the ending.

The premise of the film was good, but has been done quite a bit. Some of the plot twists were very good...and a few really threw me. There was enough suspense to definitely keep me interested.

It was an interesting twist on a concept that I previously felt had been overdone. The writer made this part work. The "bad guy" was underacted yet overdone by the dialog. A rock could have delivered that performance. The lead actor was quite good, however, and made this film worth my 7 out of 10 rating. I'd like to see more of his films.

I probably wouldn't purchase the movie, but I would watch it again if it was on.

Greetings Again from the Darkness. Nice, taut thriller from first time director Richard Connolly. The movie has an Australian pace to it - very deliberate, and a bit choppy. The characters are all a bit reserved, but true emotions are somehow worn on one's sleeve. Anthony LaPaglia, who has been one of the most consistent actors for 10-12 years, is the power-hungry president of the largest bank in the region. He perfectly captures the necessary ego, greed and desperation that the position requires. David Wenham plays his savior/nemesis with perfect aplomb. The two forge a partnership of necessity and ego that is a pleasure to watch - really just a live action chess match. I was most confounded by the character played by Sibylla Budd as I continually thought a surprise was in store. The overall theme of revenge overpowers all the other displayed human traits and makes for some wonderful moments - and a couple of GREAT lines from LaPaglia. Just a note - the "Vince Gil" in the credits is the veteran Australian actor and not the lame C&W performer.

"The Bank" teams a math whiz kid (Wenham) and his proprietary computer program which can accurately predict stock market trends with a ruthless bank CEO (LaPaglia) as they set about to make an obscene fortune at the expense of widespread econimic ruination . The film focuses on the institution everyone loves to hate, the bank, and pits ethics against hardball business while mixing in a dash of romance and murderous intentions. Not bad for a journeyman auteur (Connolly) with a low budget, "The Bank" conjures some solid drama for those who can get past the technobabble and make the few leaps of faith required to get mentally in the envelope. Slick but not without its plotholes, "The Bank" is a lukewarm three star drama worth a look. (B-)

Greed is at the core of this film. It's incredible how money can corrupt people to the point that it will make them do things that ultimately, they will live to regret.

It was a surprise to see this Australian film that only played a couple of weeks in New York. It's a much better picture than some of the very highly regarded ones that came out just about the same time and are still around, while this one went back to Australia, probably.

The director, Robert Connelly presents us with a story that's very plausible. In it, the greedy banker, played with fine assurance by Anthony LaPaglia, wants to be able to get rich with a scheme that is presented to him by the mysterious David Wenham.

Aside from some of the technical aspects of the financial world, it is very entertaining and very nicely acted by all the actors in it.

For perhaps half an hour, this is an engaging, math-based sci-fi thriller. A lot of fractal imagery, some table-cloth scribbling, a table-cloth spill, talk about chaos theory. First key, in a scene from the protagonist's childhood, is an explanation of the ramifications of compound interest. Second, in a corporate sweatbox dedicated to programming stock market predictions, is a line that could have come out of Asimov's "Foundation" novels: "It's hard as hell to predict what one man will do; take a hundred, it's much easier." Not long after this line, a conventional plot takes over. You could go home, write the remainder of the film yourself, and probably catch most of the telegraphed surprises.

Touchpoints for the first half hour: "Pi," "Moebius," "Enigma," the more statistical of Stanislaw Lem's novels (The Chain of Chance, The Investigation). Kobo Abe's novels and the films based on a few of them ("Sunna no onna," "Tanin no kao," etc.) without stooping to actual numbers, all ooze the mathematics of choice and chance. What's a dune made of, besides the sand? What's a face made of, one's own or another's, besides the cells?

I got the DVD out of this 2001 film with some anticipation. After all, the credentials of the film looked really good: an Australian film, starring Anthony LaPaglia, a diatribe on global corporatism and, especially, the banking system and, to top it all, a winner for Best Original Screenplay at the prestigious AFI Awards.

Well, unfortunately, the film was, in its entirety, very disappointing. For one, it did not deserve to win Best Screenplay at the AFI or any other awards show for that matter. Conceptually the film did indeed have its merits but, alas, that does not necessarily a great screenplay make. What the film had brimming in promise (read: concept), it lacked sorely in true substance and, above all, plausibility (read: a good story). The plot line was simply not entirely believable and, quite frankly, it wrapped itself up just a tad too neatly at the end. For example, the lead character's true identity (and one of the turning points upon which the film's so-called 'final twist' relied) was executed very clumsily and unconvincingly. This screenplay worked neither as taut social commentary or satire nor as a dark drama/thriller and, in failing to work within a strong genre, it completely lost its impact. The script, whilst having some notable one-liners and observations about the banking/corporate world was, still quite poor in terms of real plot development and emotional buy-in.

The direction by director-writer Robert Connolly was competent without ever excelling in terms of plot revelation, mood depiction or genre-shaping flow. Simply put, the film lacked real drive, emotion or excitement and, frankly, the blame must rest squarely with the director; a director that, whilst seemingly assured and technically sound, lacked vision and verve in his execution here. As a result, the film is strangely flat, oddly devoid of any exciting build-up and simply does not linger in the memory.

Technically, the film cannot be outright faulted, but neither does that make it technically excellent. The photography by Tristan Milani was appropriately severe and steely-blue. Yet, the depiction of a corporate-geared Australian city (for a non-Australian, one struggles to know whether it's Sydney or Melbourne?) without real identity and sense of place was, in fact, a negative for the film's sense of mood depiction. The blame there should lie with director and cinematographer. The editing, particularly in regard to the computer graphics and F/X, had some merit, although, once again, a sense of verve was required here too. The worst culprit, however, was the at times clanging and even jarring musical score by Alan John. This is one score that ranged from being eerily excellent to downright annoying and distracting; ultimately, any excellence thereof was diluted.

In terms of acting, the saving grace of this film was indeed Anthony LaPaglia. His presence was broody, exacting and menacing, without resorting to the caricature of what a rich, corporate asshole should be portrayed. Kudos to him for a retrained, pitch-perfect performance. Unfortunately, the acting by the other actors in the film was far from riveting or even that good; a surprising letdown hardly ever seen in Australian cinema. The lead actor, David Wenham, had some moments of adequate intensity and character truth but, as a whole, he came across as insipid and unconvincing as a clearly left-leaning mathematical genius. Sibylla Budd as the (totally unnecessary and badly written) love interest simply came across as a very poor actress. She flinched and fluttered her eyelids at all the wrong moments and the intensity of her fledgling and confused feelings for our intrepid lead man were simply unconvincing and untouching.

The film's highlights? LaPaglia, some of the core social and banking-related issues that are wittily remarked upon and a (limited) amount of interesting social commentary. But, ultimately, this was a film that could have been, should have been, and simply fails. It had such contemporary, relevant and dynamic themes to run with and yet, throughout, it came across as merely derivative, unconvincing and even quite dull. This all made "The Bank" an even bigger letdown than most other disappointing films and its critical/award success even more puzzling and quite undeserving. The pedigree was all there but the chance to be a real winner of a film was simply lost.

This story is along the lines of 'Runaway Jury'. Old injustices take

center stage in the mind of the involved and revenge is the goal.

Well done movie. A refreshing change from the 'shoot'em up'

endless car chases and bullets flying everywhere fare and

buildings being blown to smithereens. Well acted, some intrigue

and the vocabulary was not offensive for the most part. I Highly

recommend this movie to anyone wanting to be entertained by a

solid story line, good acting by a lot of unknowns, to me anyhow. I

still haven't figured out Sibylla Budd's character, very enigmatic. It

was filmed in Australia and Italy according to the Internet Movie

Data Base.

The Bank is a great story well told. It leaves you feeling that banks always take you for a ride. I thought David Wenham's character was so well played but the ending was a bit flat. I think that the ending did not reach any real level of interest for the audience

It's obvious that the screenwriter/director doesn't much like banks - and not many people do. You're only likely to get friendly attention from them when you have large sums of money to deposit, otherwise you are regarded as one the pests they have to put up with to get enough of the aforementioned type of customer - and they take sizeable fees from you for the privilege. The screenplay here is at its best when fuelling that perception, particularly by the attitudes of the bank's CEO, here portrayed (unnecessarily) as an American being pressured by the bank's directors to make higher profits (having closed most of the branches to achieve that wasn't enough). The guy is greed-driven and doesn't care about people. We get two cases of people's lives being ruined by the bank's loan foreclosures. So far so good. But some things don't quite square with reality - the mentality of bankers generally is not suited to gambling and a CEO isn't likely to test a mathematics whizzkid's theories with real money right at the start. It's improbable that a bank's board would agree to a gamble involving the bank's entire capital. Could the mathematics whizzkid really hide a previous identity so easily, and his real motivation as revealed at the end doesn't go with the ethical disinterest he shows throughout. But the film is very good on a technical level - the science presented (generally) suspends disbelief superbly, the characters are credible, acting passable and the editing is excellent. My acid test of a good film is whether it holds my attention throughout and this film certainly does that. 8 out of 10.

The ideas and the actors are good enough despite the plot reminiscent of some other movies.

The opening mystery is much more fascinating than the ending, which seems quite obvious and typical of populist movies.

When I first decided to watch 'The Bank', I really new very little about it, only that got some pretty good reviews and had two of Australia's finest actors in it. Afterwards, I can say that it offers a very well structured and acted piece of work, with a very neat twist towards the end.

What is most important about this film, though in many ways it is a mystery, is it's focus on greed, and how incredibly focused one has to be in the business world. Wenham, who plays the part of a brilliant mathematician who has developed a formula for anticipating the stock market, is constantly challenged by the 'banks' CEO into forgetting all morality for a buck.

Overall, there's a great deal of great characterizations in this fine tale, but revealing anything else about the flick would probably ruin it for most, so all I can say is that I recommend it to anyone who can find it.

The film starts with a schoolclass where a bank manager explains that if you would save $ 0.50 a week in 25 years you would have amassed $ 727.000.

This is so wrong, you'ld need to get 62.018 % interest to get there.

People like that shouldn't be talking about mandelbroth functions and fractals.

Maybe this is what goes over Down Under (sorry, couldn't resist), but I found this film to be lacking much sophistication. And it certainly withers next to the last Australian import I saw, the nuanced and terrific "Lantana". "The Bank" is about on par with what you might see on American cable, maybe slightly better acted. It's meant to be a tense thriller about corporate greed vs. the good of society, but the script tackled these themes in such a heavy handed simplistic way I couldn't get interested. No accident, I'm sure, that the "good" guy representing the common man was Aussie, and the "bad" guy who personified unethical corporate excess was an American (played by an Australian, the usually good and occasionally very good Anthony LaPaglia).

Sometimes when a film has a dull script, it can be rescued by inspired direction, acting or dialogue. Unfortunately "The Bank" doesn't have any of these, so it ends up being a mediocre movie. It wasn't awful, there are a couple of good lines and a decent twist, but not enough for me to recommend it. If you're hankering for a movie about a math genius, rent Darren Aranofsky's "Pi" instead. It's much better.

A large corporate bank takes on a young Mathematics PHD boffin who insists that with funds he can fully develop a theory that predicts the movements of the stock market.

Not a bad watch at all, fine acting, a pretty good story and nice cinematography bring together a thoroughly credible piece.

The bank here is the archetypal 'unelected private tyranny' that exist in our times, where they can bully governments, cross borders and refute any kind of ethical principles in the name of greed and profit.

The head of the evil organisation is played very well by Anthony LaPaglia who is utterly convincing and puts in the best performance of the film. In addition, the lead David Wenham is also fairly good and his beautiful love interest Sibylla Budd is not bad either.

I quite enjoyed this movie, each scene looked like a lot of effort had been put into setting it up and directing the actors. The overall feel of the film was very effective for the subject matter but it was missing something that would make it truly memorable and a great film. The ending was not bad but overall the film was just not substantial enough

Worth a watch

Now here is something different in an Australian movie - something that could have been clichéd but goes on to better things. Seems the writer may have little like for Banks (especially those with links to 'world' banks IE; The World Economic Forum, etc)....and rightly so! The production values are modest but have a potent look and feel, with the cast being just right for their characters. If the basic premise comes across as far-fetched, the final outcome has the effect of justifying it, and in filmmaking, that's not an easy thing to achieve.

The main theme works on Chaos/Fractal theory for predicting the fluctuations in world stock exchange values and goes on to examine how some foul mouthed American banking guru will gamble everything on that big chance to make a worldwide financial killing. There are several motivational levels driving the various characters and the viewer is actively drawn into their lives as they move precariously closer together.

Some characters personal intentions can at times seem at odds with their outcomes (particularly with the curious love interest - is she genuine or a plant?) but the moviemakers manage to resolve this nicely. Production design, cinematography, music, and direction are equally slick with the emphasis on a Hitchcockian style ambiance. This one leaves a satisfied feeling for the time invested in watching and it's pleasing to see the characters receiving an equal serve of what they deserve.

Jim Doyle's character was poorly drawn, but would have made a lot more sence during the movie if we had known about him past, so we could see the parallel between him and Wayne Davis (This part of the movie was too dislocated from the main action). Also the plot and continunity errors were completely distracting. Would have been a brilliant film if they had cut the character of Wayne Davis and made it a 10-15 minute film

Not a particular hate - I 'm not racist, I hate equally. I like and love a lot of Australia/ns too. My important point is that Aussies may never wake up to their self loathing - further illustrated by the lukewarm or simply cold reception to this film. An inferior, Hollywood equivalent, may look prettier or maybe just DAZZLING (instead of good looking), but would do much better business and garner much better reviews, maybe even pulling huge audiences. Once again, I am the reviewer who deserves your thumbs-up, yet I rarely gain them - I cannot write for fools. A review of the film is better for containing very little about the film, maybe just a general idea and some related thoughts should be enough to whet your appetite, OR show you it may not be your cup of tea. YOU CAN READ COPIOUS PLOT DESCRIPTIONS ALL OVER THE PLACE! This film is like music - you've basically heard it all before, but the timing, rhythm and tune here are fantastic, and do attain an originality - a thoroughly engaging little thriller that adds TEXTURE instead of twists. You can pretty much guess what will happen but that doesn't have to change your ability to be engaged by a better than average script, (more realistic, FORGETTING plot holes - fiction will ALWAYS have them), and fine performances. I state that even though I am NO fan of David Wenham either. Melbourne is used in a lovely way as the back drop, too. A great surprise of a film, I actually found out about this, researching the Aussie production company responsible for 'Balibo' - also a FINE film. Basically these Aussie films have an engaging, more realistic feel and not in a gritty sheety way either.