It's not often that a major Hollywood motion picture is made by a former resident of Lake County. But with the new film "The Italian Job," F. Gary Gray, a 33-year-old native of Highland Park, has amassed a distinguished career in just five films. Surprisingly, each has name recognition, so he's proven that he can start strong and like a young boxer, improve over time. His first film was "Friday," which was followed by another heist film "Set it Off." He directed "The Negotiator" with Kevin Spacey and Samuel L. Jackson, which was filmed in Chicago. Most recently he directed Vin Diesel in "A Man Apart."

If the Oscars had a category for "best fun action movie," Gray would be on the short list to carry home a statuette. I saw this film the same day I previewed "The Matrix Reloaded" and although "The Italian Job" does not touch "Reloaded," with its extended action scenes, IJ is more dramatic because it's closer to reality. The Mini Cooper car chase in the LA Metro subway is real to the point that specially made cars with electric engines were made just for those scenes, since the city would not allow gasoline combustion engines in the tunnels. With great difficulty, approval was secured to close the section of Hollywood and Vine for seven days, the busiest intersection in California, which is equivalent to Times Square in New York City.

"The Italian Job" has plenty of action. In Venice, Italy Gray and his crew created so many large wakes in the canals, that it may be a long time, if ever, before you see another chase scene on the waterways of that city. Those canals are narrow and the boats were going amazingly fast. Then there is the helicopter vs. Mini Cooper scene toward the end of the film. Ed Norton is airborne in the copter as he chases Mark Wahlberg's Mini Cooper, in a building with a razor thin clearance between the ceiling and rotating blades of the aircraft. That is as real as you reading on the Internet right now is.

Shari Lansing, the President of Paramount Studios called Gray and asked him if he would be interested in directing this picture. He believes that the reason he got that call was because she knew he can "…deliver action with characters you get to know that have warmth. The chief job of a filmmaker is to witness the human condition. A director must know when to pull the reigns tight and when to loosen them. It's about finesse."

"The Italian Job" is one of those pictures that you like when you first see it, and even better after you have had a few days to think about it. It's a film that I really want to see again. It will be even more fun the next time.

The gold bars are first stolen in Venice, in a spectacular robbery from a charming palazzo, then later in a double cross on an icy bridge in Austria, and finally from the conniving Steve in Los Angeles. The only part of what you see that is CGI is the cover over a hole in a LA street. I'd tell you more but that would take too much fun out of the movie. The Metro Tunnel was a set that was so huge that they "rented the hangar where they built the first space shuttle."

Although some will minimize how good the film is because it is a remake, other than the general story idea and scenes using the Mini Coopers in a LA traffic jam, it's a very different movie than the original.

Unlike "Reloaded" where the best action scenes seem to go on forever, "The Italian Job" balances the plot with the action ("Reloaded" is cerebral and this is not, nor does it try to be). Although more than 30 Mini Coopers were used in the production, you never see more than three at any time. So much happens with these little gems, that Gray "…had a 24-hour body shop dedicated to the movie." The cast was so tight that he says, "It was the easiest group so far." Part of that is because, as Gray says, "Over the last four films, I've sharpened my ability to articulate my vision with the actors." A key factor in the chemistry of the actors being on target was the touch of casting director Sheila Jeffe, who is best known for assembling the cast of "The Sopranos."

Getting his first professional position in movies as a cameraman at the age of 19, Gray explained that how one moves from Highland Park to Hollywood is "…planning and the luck of the draw. It's a roll of the dice and working with good people that will give you an opportunity"¾ to succeed or fail.

One reason the action in this film seems so natural is because the story and characters are the essence of the movie, with the car, boat and helicopter chases functioning as supporting events rather than the reverse.

F. Gary Gray clearly has a vision and knows how to communicate it to everyone involved with making his films. Before a film begins, he creates and distributes a mission statement, "So all would know how to fulfill my vision." Gray clearly conveys a sense of what a director does and what it takes to make a film something special.

His next frontier, other than writing, is to jump into fantasy. Gray's success with the tried and true genre of the caper heist film, sets him up to give us something in the fantasy realm that moves us past the level of films such as LOTR, Star Wars (which now seems dated) and the Matrix series, making them seem almost routine. There is always a higher level and Gray has the talent to take us there.