The Bank

Ok I have a new computer and I've been ripping CD's for days. So I got unbox and downloaded a free movie, cool. Well not cool I play it in the unbox player and the film looks like it was shot all above the waist. I don't understand how this "The Bank" came out where half the movie is not visable. WTF! Ok I guess that's the last time I download a free copy I mean who am I going to complain too, it was free.== Addendum ==Unbox is 32 bit and doesn't play well in 64 bit OS. Watch the movie instantly and no problem works fine.

Love the movie but it is over priced!

Very good but falls flat at the end, a contrived conclusion to an otherwise interesting movie

This refreshing movie is a thriller with no physical violence. The hero doesn't try to win the day by punching or shooting. Instead, he uses his intelligence and creativity. One of the main ideas of the film is that it might be possible to predict the stock market using some mathematical formula. Certainly, there is ongoing research into that area. Various formulas have been tried in the last few years with well publicized results. There is a little mathematical mumbo jumbo in the film which probably adds to the production design, but isn't necessary to understand the film. There is a little bit of Hitchcock in the film including some illogic in the script, but it's enjoyable all the same. Anthony La Paglia does some great acting as the antagonist for whom creating additional profit for a corporation is the only goal. In case you think his portrayal is over the top, rent Enron: The Smartest Men in the Room, a chilling documentary about actions in the Board Room.Many features of the plot of this film were in The Spanish Prisoner which is also a thriller without violence.

I saw this film during it's cinema run during 2001, and was absolutely captivated by it. The effect it had on it's audience was sinister, since the movie takes such risks in the narrative, and they grow greater and more ominous. This is not Vegas people; this is real life. Those who got hit by the financial crisis will adore this movie, because - even if it's just for the span of the film - you get a slice of something that I bet many people would love from today's banks. Payback!I've been hunting for this one for ages, and am so happy to see it on the market again. Stay tuned for David Wenham's killer answer to the last question of the movie. I fell over myself laughing in the cinema, but the rest of the audience seemed wrung out by it. Then again, I remain unencumbered by mortgages, and owe banks NOTHING - thank God.One of Australia's unsung masterpieces, with two of it's best actors!.

This movie is a example of how bad DVD technology is. It completely hijacks your DVD player, disallowing the ability to fast forward or skip any of the FBI warnings or any of the self-promotional themes. Any and all contents are unskippable and unforwardable until the movie begins. Pressing the "menu" button doesn't do anything either. The movie stops and the screen is black. There is no menu. The only recourse is to push "play" upon which you are forced to watch the hijacking of your hardware. The menu (when it *finally* got there) makes absolutely no sense. It's a fractal zooming effect that blinks ferociously and does not slow down enough to let you figure out what to do. All I could do was push "play" and the movie started. No freedom to do anything. It locks you out of your own movie. Just because DVD technology *can* control you doesn't mean it *should* control you. Truly, DVD at its worst.

Great!

The Bank is an Australian film about the greed and [dishonesty] of banks. Anthony Lapaglia (who is actually Australian but speaks in this film with an American accent) plays Simon O'Reilly, the head honcho of a major bank who behaves like a cross between Wall Street's Gordon Gekko and Robert Deniro in one of his gangster roles. Indeed, O'Reilly is the only character in the film who routinely swears and is rude to everyone (with the exception of his American wife, whose one line contains a vulgar phrase). Perhaps this is the (occasionally justified, to be fair) Australian stereotype of Americans. I'm afraid, however, that much of what this film knows about Americans and about financial markets was learned only from other movies, especially Wall Street. Simon hires mathematical genius Jim Doyle (played rather blandly by David Wenham) who may have figured out a system to predict the stock market. This system has something to do with fractals and chaos theory; probably not valid, but this is the least of the films weaknesses. There is a parallel plot, awkwardly handled, about a couple whose business was foreclosed by the same bank. After an official hands the couple's young son a summons, the boy drowns in an accident. Although this tragedy is only very indirectly connected to the bank, the film attempts to use this as a device to drive home the heavy-handed point that greed at high levels creates misery for ordinary people. Oddly enough, I found The Bank both confusing and predictable. The connection between the two plot lines is not clear till very late in the film and then they are brought together in a series of scenes that are alternately confusing and simply unbelievable. There is one silly melodramatic scene involving guns. The final twist was supposed to be a surprise, but it was really the only place the script had to go. Without giving anything away, I can say that one of the main characters' actions at the end make much of his earlier behavior completely irrational. The Bank has a few good scenes; there are some interesting discussions involving finance and mathematics. To ask for accuracy on these matters would be asking too much (after all, as far as we know no one has yet found a foolproof way to beat the stock market), but there are too many other things in the film that are not plausible. The ending, for example, is extremely naïve and is more suited for a comedy where realism is not important. At one point in the film someone says "I just hate banks." I'm afraid this was the primary motivation for making this film. This would be fine if they were able to back it up with a credible story, but in my opinion they didn't pull it off here.