Based on the movie of the same name, The Italian Job is a fast-paced mission-based racing game featuring Minis tearing up Los Angeles and Hollywood in pursuit of stolen gold. The movie license hurts more than it helps, as the game is a flashy and visually appealing racer with almost no content worth playing. The PS2 release also suffers from several bugs, making this game a definite no buy.

The main gameplay is in story mode, which attempts to capture the feel of the movie by giving you brief slideshows and voiceovers explaining what you are doing and why. Unfortunately, the deadpan voice fails to create any sense of enthusiasm at all and can actually leech away any excitement left over from your last mission. The missions are all short and timed, even the ones where it makes no logical sense for them to be timed, and consist of getting Object A to Point B. Sometimes you'll then need to get Object A to Point C after that, but the missions don't have much variety, and since the majority only give you about a minute to complete, they don't last long at all. After you've finished the extremely short story mode, all you have to look forward to is circuit racing, stunt racing, and free roam. Circuit racing is just monotonous check-point based racing in either Hollywood or Downtown Los Angeles. Stunt racing is a trial and error style test of the player's willingness to restart over and over again just so they can ride around a warehouse for a minute and a half. Free Roam is just what the name says; it lets you choose either Downtown L.A. or Hollywood to roam around in. There are no pedestrians, and the cities are not interesting enough for Free Roam to have any lasting appeal at all. It feels like it was just thrown in to pad the feature list.

What makes this game all the more uninteresting is that it didn't have to be this bad. It has a stable foundation of good graphics and good control. One of the things that the Italian Job gets right is the sense of speed while racing. Once you hop in a Mini and hit a straight road you feel like you're just flying along, tearing up the scenery. As well as being fast, the cars handle extremely well, making the racing itself accessible for people who haven't played racing games before. The cities both look decent, though neither of them are as large as the Midtown Madness 3 cities or Grand Theft Auto 3's areas. The cars are a bit too shiny and almost cartoony, but that doesn't stick out so much and almost compliments the unrealistic feel of the controls. However, when you're racing around Los Angeles, smashing into the inexplicable piles of crates left strewn around the sidewalks, and attempting to escape the zergling-like horde of suicidal, crash-happy cops, you realize that all the good basics in the world can't make a bad game better.

Several times the game would suddenly cut out motor sounds from the cars, or background noise. There were times when I'd suddenly be racing in total silence, fixable only by rebooting the PS2. In other parts, the slideshow between races would stall. I could decide to just skip the story and move on to the race, but there's no excuse for these kinds of bugs in a console game. There were times where I ended up racing an opponent with no idea who they were or why we were racing. Had I chosen to restart so that I could find out the story, the racer would have chosen the exact same path, with the exact same bumps and troubles, every single time.

While the game has the good fundamentals for a fast-paced and wild racing game, it falls short of the mark. Even fans of the movie won't be satisfied with the game, with its dry retelling of the story between missions. Monotonous gameplay, sound errors, and sparse content make The Italian Job a game to pass by.