I finally caught The Bank Job on DVD last night. Well-constructed little heist movie, witty, Saffron Burrows’ cheekbones could put your eye out. The movie drips with early ’70s London atmosphere, and starts off brilliantly with the opening chords of “Get It On” by T. Rex over the studio logos. But that’s pretty much the last period music in the movie! Everything else is scored to a dull techno track straight out of Post-Bourne Heist Movies 101.

As bad anachronistic soundtracks go, it’s right up there with A Knight’s Tale and every bad ’80s fantasy movie ever carpeted with wall-to-wall synth (Legend, Ladyhawke, etc.) Directors: only update the era of your soundtrack if you’re convinced that the replacement has more to say than the original. There Will Be Blood and Chariots of Fire are the success stories that leap to mind. Marie Antoinette and Moulin Rouge! would have sucked even if Baz Luhrmann or Sofia Coppola had resurrected John Lennon and George Harrison and commissioned an all-new original soundtrack from the reunited Beatles, so let’s leave them out of the equation.

Are there any examples of movie that screw up the time in the other way–that is, choose music that incongruously pre-dates the events of the movie? I can only think of one: The Sting is set in 1936, while Scott Joplin rags went out over 15 years before. I guess there’s the “Blue Danube” in 2001. Does that count?