Stella (Charlize Theron, earnest as ever) is the only girl in The Italian Job. Being as it’s a remake of a 1969 Michael Caine heist picture, you’d think that her input would be minimal. But Stella brings surprising edge to her by-the-numbers part (originally male), not to mention crucial elements to the plot -- namely, safecracking skills, a thirst for vengeance and a Mini Cooper.

Still, she's up against it in this too-many-guys-vying-for-supporting-pizzazz picture. Stella is introduced right away in the film, in a pose that underlines that she is The Girl. Her veteran safecracker father, John (Donald Sutherland), calls her on his cell from Venice. She's in bed, filtered light making her sleepy sexy underweared self look even gauzier. And yet, the moment complicates what it can mean to be The Girl. It turns out that dad's skipped parole and is about to embark on one last job, after which he promises to go straight. As soon as John utters these words to his darling girl, this fate -- like the film's -- is sealed. Poor Stella hangs up, feeling sad, as you might be too, for it's all too clear what's going to happen in the next few minutes: John will be dead and the movie will be headed down, way down, its generic path.

As capers go, the Venice job looks splendid -- some ornate architecture, St. Mark's Square, some fancy cutting of floors and speeding of boats. John's crew -- all predictable types -- includes his son-like favorite student, master planner Charlie (Mark Wahlberg); driver/womanizer Handsome Rob (Jason Statham); computer nerd Lyle (Seth Green); explosives expert Left Ear (Mos Def); and inside man Steve (Ed Norton). Though they get away with the gold, one of their number -- Steve, whose grumpiness is evident from frame one -- double-crosses the bunch, steals the gold and shoots John dead in the process (Wahlberg's efforts at crying over the body against an icy Austrian Alps background are, in a word, painful).

The others are, of course, soon fixated on vengeance. A year later, they locate their mark in Los Angeles, whereupon Charlie seeks out Stella, who's working as a super-talented safecracker for the Philadelphia PD. While it appears that she's gone into this line of work in order to get through her own very mixed-up feelings about her mostly absent father (admiration, love, resentment, frustration), she's quick to say yes to Charlie, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that he's just about the blandest fellow on the planet.

Charlie's uninteresting stiffness is only highlighted by his opposition to Steve, one of the surliest villains to appear on screen in years. (This may have something to do with reports that Norton took the part under duress, when Paramount exercised a contract option it had held since his breakout role in Primal Fear, threatening legal action if he refused.) Steve's snarky meanness comes to a strangely distant climax when the film eventually comes to its end -- a car "chase" in L.A. featuring a trio of tricked-out Mini Coopers careening along sidewalks and up and down subway stairs. (In the 1969 version, the Mini Coopers, then equally cute and stylish, raced through the streets of Torino.) Steve, meanwhile, watches from an appropriately menacing black helicopter, such that Norton's performance is rendered in the most tedious sort of reaction shots: "Hmmm, what are you up to, Charlie?"

As such silliness suggests, the primary conflict is between good son Charlie and bad son Steve, but Stella, the only crew member whom Steve won't recognize, has to spend some creepily uncomfortable time with him, pretending to be a cable repair person. His flirtation with her is terribly inept, presumably to underline that ill-gotten gains have only made him surlier and more unhappy than he was back in Italy. But it also makes for some compelling performance moments for Theron, who is otherwise as confined by those multiple driving-around-sharp-corners shots as any of her buddies (also too bad is the groan-inducing scene where Stella has to crack a safe without her tools, but "by touch," the way her dad did).

Here, Theron embodies a persuasive mix of vulnerability and anger, recalling some of her most beguilingly odd work, in 2 Days in the Valley, The Devil's Advocate, Mighty Joe Young and The Astronaut's Wife. If she hasn't always picked the most spectacular projects (The Yards, Trapped), Theron consistently brings a layered sensibility to her characters, part exposed and part steely. And in this mega-ode-to-guys movie, she's sharper and more complicated than any of them.