British Cinema has a fine tradition with regard to the heist movie – a quick trawl through the memory vault, so to speak, brings to mind such excellent films as ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’ (1949), ‘The Long Arm’ (1956), ‘Robbery’ (1967), ‘The Bank Job’ (2008) and finally the most impeccable of all, the 1960 masterpiece ‘The League of Gentlemen.’
These are all extremely good films, each one well written and acted, containing moments of great intrigue and tension as criminals pit their wits against the cops (and vice-versa), with no shortage of humour and hubris either in the perennial battle between wrong and right.
Making no apology for being a student of the British Crime Drama movie, there was a hope within me that ‘KING of THIEVES’ (director Neil Marsh, 108 minutes), would take its place among the finest examples of what this genre has to offer, expectations based upon the top notch cast assembled to tell the incredible true story of the most scarcely believable blag of our times.
Unfortunately all the willingness in the world for it to live up to expectations cannot alter the fact that the job doesn’t quite come off, unlike the actual 2015 safety deposit box burglary from a vault in the London jewellery quarter of Hatton Garden – but just as the elderly gang members in the firm who carried out the raid didn’t get away with it, neither does the film depicting their audacious crime.
Which is not to say ‘King of Thieves’ is a complete failure as it does contain some enjoyable, eminently watchable moments – only that it just falls short on each level, the intended comic lines in the script not quite sharp enough to make it a comedy, while never sufficiently exciting enough to be an out and out thriller.
To bring excitement into the lives of a band of veteran villains, almost all of whom are in the advanced stage of retirement, appears the main motivation for them to carry out the job. Going-straight career criminal Brian Reader (Michael Caine), whose life is in a state of flux following the death of his wife, is approached by the young but shy electronics whiz Basil (Charlie Cox) who comes armed with an ambitious plan to raid a jewel-laden strong room in Hatton Garden.
To bring the idea to fruition Reader assembles his band of aging tearaways – combustible hard case Terry Perkins (a cast against type Jim Broadbent), the dithering, often confused Kenny Collins (Tom Courtenay) and the thuggish Danny Jones (a role meat and drink to Ray Winstone). In plotting the job there are endless complaints of tiredness, boredom, loneliness and various medical ailments, yet the first half of the story leading up to and including the heist is done in a straightforward, relatively sprightly manner. So far reasonably good – but in the second it loses pace and purpose as in the wake of their success in executing the raid, the gang become a bunch of suspicious, squabbling individuals when contemplating the astronomical proceeds they have made off with.
The introduction of Michael Gambon as a befuddled, incontinent fence serves little more than a plot device for another round of somewhat predictable old people jokes, in much the same way that earlier in the piece ‘Basil’ is served with a number of disparaging ‘youngsters can’t teach us nothing’ style-remarks.
Because the true story of the Hatton Garden raid is so astonishing (by most estimates the largest burglary in English legal history) there is a sense the strength of the cast alone can carry the film. While undoubtedly a far more polished effort than the 2016 low budget account of the robbery, neither version does this remarkable tale of late-life villainy the justice (not perhaps the most apt term) it deserves given just how old most of the culprits were.
Where director Marsh does distinguish his film from the earlier, even shorter Terry Lee Coker directed adaptation, is toward the end of ‘King Of Thieves’ when he cuts to chase scenes from earlier London heist flicks – ‘Robbery’ being one – to create the sense these cockney-cons have spent their lives in the crime game, going so far as to include brief images of the young Courtenay in ‘Billy Liar’ and a fresh-faced Caine in ‘The Italian Job.’
On first viewing this seems a clever way of avoiding flashback sequences but at the same time gives the impression of being testament to the enduring appeal of the two stars themselves – rather than the crocked and crooked old-boy blaggers they have been cast to portray.
NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an acclaimed thriller now available as an Amazon Kindle Book.