ustralian director Roger Donaldson (“The Recruit,” “Thirteen Days”) - working from a script by the veteran British team of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais - has crafted a respectable mix of fact and fiction with the largest real-life bank heist ever at a local branch of the Lloyds Bank, all set to T-Rex's Bang A Gong.

It's 1971, and Terry Leather (Jason Statham) a small-time used-car dealer with a shady past and a new family, is looking for a big score to wipe out his gambling debts and escape the intimidating loan-shark’s hoodlums demanding payment. But things go horribly wrong for Terry when beautiful Martine (Saffron Burrows), a flourishing model from his past, approaches him with an opportunity to lead a crew of his own choosing to what she describes as a foolproof bank heist on London’s Baker Street.

Regardless of whether it's more fact or fiction, it provides an enjoyable two hours.

Terry is at first hesitant, but he eventually agrees to set up the caper without telling his wife, Wendy (Keeley Hawes). Really, he just wants to "get out of the game." But, he's about to lose his garage, and no other options are falling into his lap. So he gathers together his old mates for the task of tunneling into the bank’s safety deposit vault.

However, he is unaware that Martine is actually working for government agent Everett (Richard Lintern), and has been sent to retrieve the compromising photographs of a certain royal personage hidden in a bank security deposit box owned by revolutionary/drug dealer/pimp Michael X (Peter De Jersey).

British intelligence (MI-5) knows about the pics, and they want them destroyed. MI-5 helps arrange the whole thing. The bank's alarm system won't be on. All the smuggler has to do is tempt others into doing the work. The photos are kept in a deposit box so the force of MI5 and MI6 stage what is designed to look like an ordinary burglary to nab the snaps while avoiding suspicion of a government job.

The beauty of the robbery scheme is that the robbers don't really “break in” at all; instead they rent out an abandoned handbag store two doors down from the bank and tunnel in from below to the inside of the vault itself. Secret service is more than happy to keep the local law enforcement at bay - just so long as Martine can slink away with the royal photos.

Along the way, an elderly ham radio operator accidentally stumbles across the gang’s walkie-talkie transmissions, and alerts the police there’s a bank robbery in progress. Fortunately for MI-5, narrowing down which of London’s dozens of banks is being robbed is going to take some considerable time and effort. This tidbit is what, in real life, made the headlines as the "walkie-talkie" robbery.

Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais's story is a complicated affair but it succeeds accordingly courtesy of Statham, entertaining as the loveable rogue while exuding his trademark cocksure macho attitude. And Director Roger Donaldson does a good job of capturing the hip London look of the early ‘70s while keeping the suspense crackling with one of the biggest bank heists ever committed.

Some of what appears on-screen in The Bank Job is speculative, but much has the ring of truth; regardless of whether it's more fact or fiction, it provides an enjoyable two hours.