The Shanghai Job

Orlando Bloom makes his bid for action-man status with this Chinese-backed production with one eye on the English-speaking market. Channelling Jason Statham for all he's worth (and not making too bad a fist of it), Bloom plays a security expert haunted by a past failure, who is given a second chance when he is entrusted with transporting a priceless vase from Shanghai to London. But he doesn't even make it to the airport before the artefact is swiped by the same gang responsible for robbing a Van Gogh from under his nose a year earlier. It does seem quite a stretch that anyone would entrust the world's greatest art treasures to Bloom and his shoestring outfit, which comprises two guys, a plucky girl and a nerdy kid operating a drone camera, but then there's not much about this film that actually rings true. Making his feature debut, director Charles Martin (TV's Skins) does keep things moving along, but his attempts to ignite proceedings with a touch of Guy Ritchie swagger are a bit hit and miss, while the story itself offers few surprises.