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The Italian Job and Nigel Farage’s Head

Posted on 25/11/23 in Film, Politics

For an explanation of Brexit, it is extraordinary how much is contained in The Italian Job. A cult classic in the UK, starring icons Michael Caine and Noel Coward (and not to be confused with the horrible remake), the film basically sets out what is in the heads of those who think that the UK will cut a swathe in the world, when released from the unimaginative clutches of Europe.

The plot’s conceit is that Britain is basically run by a hyper-patriotic gangster from his prison cell (Noel C), who commissions Michael Caine to carry out a massive gold bullion robbery in Turin (English entrepreneurialism versus European organisation), from under the noses of the mafia (English enterprise versus European enterprise) on the night of an Italy-England football match (England win), with some style (Carnaby Street fashion abounds). They do this by subverting Turin’s traffic control system (English ad hoc hacking ingenuity versus smart cities technology), and making their getaways in three Minis (superior small British cars) – one red, one white and one blue (the colours of the UK flag) – during a famous stunt sequence car chase through Turin pursued by the police (English flexibility/versatility versus European process). The final scene is an almost perfect metaphor for Brexit.

It is all about England, not Britain (there is a West Indian man in the gang, but no Scots, Irish or Welsh), and about men (the only woman in the gang is sent to Switzerland half way through and never seen again, while most of the other women in the cast are there for Michael Caine or Benny Hill to go to bed with – indeed, at one stage Caine staggers exhausted out of an orgy and immediately goes to bed with another woman – no need to psychoanalyse what that says about English self-image).

This is what the inside of Nigel Farage’s or Boris Johnson’s head is like, I suspect, and the film does appeal very widely to the English of all classes (it often appears in top British films lists, and “you’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off” was once voted the best line in cinema history). There are many touches to say that this rough and ready combative patriotism is a deliberate stylistic choice in the film – for instance, there is a reference to the gold helping Britain’s balance of payments deficit by taking it from the Common Market (which is what the British used to call the EU then, when they were trying to join and Charles de Gaulle kept vetoing them), while the gang travels across the Channel in a ferry pointedly called ‘The Free Enterprise’.

If you have any European friends or colleagues who were baffled by the British going mad, it is very educational. The answer is that they were always that way.

Lightly edited from an IMDb review, https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4376909/?ref_=ur_urv