Bank of Dave (2023)

[Edgy MD]

A successful, self-made car dealer, scandalized by the British financial system's failure during the 2008 global financial crisis, along with the subsequent public bailout, quixotically tries to bring financing back to the people by opening the first new bank in Britain in 150 years.

The system gets rocked.

[metirish]

It's on my list now , will watch over the weekend, looks good

[Edgy MD]

Its very much of a piece with any number of British — and not a few Irish — films from the 90s (and some earlier). Suit from the big city is taken by business to a colorful backwater. Despite initial cynicism, he is taken by the decency and pure-heartedness of locals, and romance + personal transformation draw him into their fight, which is a microcosm of a larger counter-modernist struggle across British or Irish (or Scottish or Welsh) or global society.

Despite the Hallmark-iness of such themes, what makes or breaks such films is usually the tone.

The leading man, in this case, is the guy who played the roadie in Yesterday.

[metirish]

Just finished it, hard not to like the story and plenty of actors in it that regularly are in movies from the UK , and Bank of Dave is still going strong

Obviously filmed when Sean Dyche was still Burnley manager, now manages Everton

[Edgy MD]

I like to think of Local Hero of the godfather of all these types of movies, but some may see precedents much earlier, in films such as Sullivan's Travels.

What's clear is that Britain and Ireland (and Scotland and Canada, etc.) generally do this sort of film much better than the US does, as an American leading man leaving it all behind to join a community of neighborly people trying to live decent lives always rings false from the get-go.

This film nonetheless feels over-formulaic, with too much of the cinematic story — like Moneyball, but moreso — superimposed onto a non-fiction book sold in the business section. The protagonist of the source memoir — the titular Dave — is even shoved aside in favor of building the story around Dave's young solicitor, who may or may not be entirely fictitious.

It's got enough good will for its audience, certainly, that you likely won't turn it off, and that's not nothing. The appearance by (insert big-shot dinosaur butt-rock act here) feels a little like they went to turn the film into the studio, but were told that they needed a marketing hook, and so they were sent back out to re-shoot a couple of scenes with (insert same big-shot dinosaur butt rock act here).

As an aside: The Dave of the title is played by Rory Kinnear, son of great British character actor Roy Kinnear who plays nervous, dishonest, glad-handers in all almost everything British and funny from 1964 to 1990.

[metirish]

Indeed the Def Leppard concert never happened , , Rory Kinnear is great iin most anything. I certainly wouldn't watch it again

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Yeah this was cute but not all that great.